Spark Possession
by shadowwriter01
Summary: After his spark had been send to the past, being defeated once again, this time by the Maximals and Predacons, Starscream had sworn revenge. Now he is agreeing to an alliance that could bring him back to power, that and far more. - Beast Wars/G1 Crossover.
1. Chapter 1: New World

The Transformers and everything related to them belongs to hasbro.

* * *

**Spark possession**

_Earth 2 million years ago_

A robot was walking through the darkened rooms of the large underground complex.

The form that had entered this hidden structure located under a mountainside belonged to the Predacon called Dinobot who, along with his group and another, both fighting each other, had landed on this planet several months ago.

At the beginning**,** he had been a follower of the renegade leader Megatron, who was calling himself after the legendary Decepticon leader of the great war.

Dissatisfied with his leader, he tried to rebel against him and failed. Very reluctantly, the proud and stubborn Predacon warrior joined the crew of Maximals led by Optimus Primal that who were trying to stop Megatron´s plans.

Both Predacons and Maximals were descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons, the Transformers who had fought the Great War for millions of years.

In opposite to their ancestors they were not completely mechanical but more cyborg like mechanisms with artificial created organic components. Their alt-modes consequently were not longer machines and vehicles but actual living beings and animals.

Dinobot himself transformed into a Velociraptor.

Here, this these two small groups were now fighting a conflict on a much smaller scale, just as Primal and Megatron the 2nd were namesakes of the leaders of old.

It was only recently that he had realized that they were actually on the planet Earth, millions of years in the past from their point of view.

The mind that was controlling the body, however, was something completely different.

Starscream, the former Air Commander and Second in Command of the Decepticon army, wasnow a disbodied spark, a wandering ghost bent on revenge on the universe.

To achieve his goals, he was taking possession of different Cybertronians of Decepticon heritage, like he was doing to Dinobot now.

In the months they had been here, they had found out that they were not the only visitors on this world.

An alien species, even more advanced than them, was watching over the Earth of this period and they had a lot of powerful technology hidden on this planet.

"Here it is," Starscream said through Dinobot´s mouth as he was standing before a huge, exotic looking machinery.

He had already found this complex weeks ago. It was one of the outposts the aliens had spread over the surfaces for their purposes, whatever they were.

He knew that it could be used to produce tremendous amounts of energy, energy that he was sure could be converted, but till now he had been bodiless and unable to do something.

Not anymore.

His plan was easy.

In this time the crashed Ark was still lying somewhere close to this area, buried under tons of rock and the two crews of Autobots and Decepticons lay deactivated inside.

His own past self was also there. Thanks to his indestructible spark, however, there was very little that could actually threaten his existence.

With his technological knowledge, he would turn this installation into a weapon and destroy the Ark, with everyone inside.

He felt that his host body was trying to put up some struggle against him.

Starscream had long realized that his possession had different effects, varying from individual to individual.

Some just went into stasis mode when he entered their body and reawakened when he left. That was actually what he prefered, no interference, no resistance; ideally they wouldn´t even know he was there.

Others stayed conscious for some reason and were sometimes able to retain different levels of influence. It cost him a greater effort to keep them under control. He never found out why.

Sadly, Dinobot seemed to belong to the second group.

On the other hand, it would also have also a good side if he had Dinobot watching when he was turning this machine into a weapon. In that way he would at least have a witness for his triumph at last.

Megatron, Optimus Prime and his crew, Soundwave, even Skywarp and Thundercracker, nearly all his enemies gone in one sweep. Only he would survive, he would always survive.

"Not one more move," he heard somebody order.

It was the voice of that cursed Maximal leader. They had found him.

"You", Starscream/Dinobot hissed, "you are nearly as annoying as the other Optimus."

"I take that as a compliment," Primal replied, "especially coming from you, Starscream. Now stand down and leave Dinobot´s body."

"Yeah, you heard it, get lost," Rattrap said.

Like his chosen name suggested, the Maximal had a rodent as an alt-mode and all too often the fitting attitude.

"You damn vermin," Starscream screamed, "I won´t let you ruin everything again."

He pulled up Dinobot´s gun and prepared to blast the smaller Maximal.

But before he could fire, he was stopped, ironically by the same device he was trying to take control of.

In the moment the weapon was energized, a beam was sent from the machinery and suddenly a force field surrounded Dinobot.

"No," Starscream screeched as he was literally sucked from Dinobot´s body.

A few seconds later, Dinobot collapsed before them.

"What was that?" Rattrap wanted to know.

"I think this outpost has some sort of automatic defense," Rhinox the warrior who acted as their technician on this mission pointed out.

Before them Dinobot was slowly getting back to his feet.

"What had happened?" He asked.

"That's what I wanted to know," Rattrap complained.

"Shut up vermin, your comments are the last thing I need now."

"That's exactly what Starscream said," Rattrap remarked sarcastically. "Maybe he is still possessed."

"You," Dinobot growled. "We have no time for this. What happened to Starscream?"

"That's what we are trying to find out," Optimus told them.

"Whatever it is, it's for sure the Vok are responsible for it," Rhinox pointed out. "The only question is, was that a programmed, automatic response or did they actually give it a command?"

The Vok, the name of the mysterious species of aliens that they have only found out a few weeks ago.

"Do you think it has destroyed Starscream?" Airrazor, a female Maximal who transformed into a falcon, asked.

"That would be too good to be true," Cheetor, the youngest member of their group commented.

"I don´t think it killed him," Rhinox replied. "I am actually not sure if that is even possible. It has probably sent him to another location or trapped him somewhere."

"No matter what happened to him," Optimus said, "we should do our best to make sure that this installation doesn´t fall into the wrong hands. It wouldn´t be the first time the Predacons tried to use Vok technology for their own purpose."

"I completely agree with you," Rhinox told him. "And the way we have just run in here, we'll be lucky if they have not already noticed us."

It was a short time ago, right after the last skirmish with the Predacons, that they saw that Dinobot was acting strangely or as Rattrap put it, even more strangely as usual. When they confronted him, they realized that he was possessed by Starscream, leading to a shoot out and his escape.

They were lucky that they were able to stay on his trail unnoticed and find out about this installation.

"You are right," Optimus admitted. "We will seal this cave, **after** we have made sure that there are no Predacons in the area."

xxxxxxx

Meanwhile**, **the former Decepticon Air Commander found himself in a dark empty room.

There was only a single light in the center, coming from a source he could not quite make out, so that he could barely see the walls.

He realized that he was in his "fake body" as he called it, a non-physical projection of the Decepticon he had been in life, instead of the drifting spark he was since arriving in the past, but still just a ghost.

"Starscream, Starscream, Starscream," he heard multiple voices from the dark calling out his name.

"You," he yelled angrily, "you have ruined everything for me. Show yourselves."

Moments after he shouted out his demand, something materialized before him.

It looked like a giant floating face in the air. For a split second he thought that this had possibly not been such a good idea.

"Starscream," the thing before him repeated again, "once Second in Command of the forces called Decepticons."

"Traitor," a second voice said.

"Outcast," a third continued.

"A shadow of what you once were."

Starscream wouldn´t take it anymore. It was one thing if these creatures wanted to disintegrate him for trying to steal their technology. But only letting him stand here and throwing insults at him...Well that was something else.

"What do you want from me?" he shouted angrily.

"We are the Vok," the first voice told him. "We are the highest development of life as it is known."

Starscream was not impressed. He had heard such claims all too often before.

And as far as he was concerned, he was the highest development of life as it was known.

"So you are the Vok," he said, "and?"

"We have watched you since you have arrived in this time period." It was the second voice that have been talking to him, this one sounded like a female, he noticed. "We have monitored your activities."

Like winning the trust of the new Megatron and then usurping him, Starscream thought, playing both sides against each other, the things he did best.

"We have also seen your attempt to use our technology to destroy the ones who are still on your inactive space ship."

"They are my enemies," he answered.

"We know, we have watched you, your past, possible futures."

"You have?" He asked now.

"And we decided to make you an offer."

"An offer?"

"An alliance as your kind would call it, an agreement to both our benefits."

Starscream was now curious.

"And why would someone like you, someone who is so powerful, need to make an agreement with someone like me, a traitor, a outcast?" he asked mockingly.

It took a few seconds before he was answered, a few interesting seconds as far as it came to him.

"Recent events have caused disagreements under our race," the first voice admitted.

Starscream thought for a few seconds.

"Recent events? You are not talking about your attempt to destroy the Earth, are you?"

"The Vok have made it their duty to watch over the time-lines and the stability of the universe. Influence from time**-**displaced Cybertronians has distrupted the balance, destroying the infestation would correct it."

The Decepticon nearly laughed.

"Destroying this planet now would change events for the entire galaxy, for hundreds of species. I would hardly call that preserving the future."

"The damage would only affect a limited number of time-lines," the voice answered uncaring, "and the influence of time-travelers would be negated.

"Others of our kind disagreed."

"You are at war," Starscream deduced. "Your group has tried to wipe out this planet on their own accord and when the rest of your kind found out, they turned on you. You are just one faction locked in a civil war."

He was answered with silence, which was more than answer enough for him.

Of course there was much of this story that Starscream simply did not understand. For example, that for the Vok themselves this, individuality, disagreement, was new. But in the roughest shape, he had analysed the situation.

"We can not allow you to continue your activities in this time-line. But we can offer you an alternative.

"We can transport you to another reality, a world where you will be in a position where you can realize all your aims.

"It would be another universe, unrelated to this one, so that your actions won´t disturb our great experiment."

For all their talk about protecting the time-line, Starscream thought, this beings had obviously no problem letting him wreak havoc in another one.

"All my aims you say?" he asked.

"You will be able to take charge of your faction easily, you will be in control of your home-planet. The being you know as Unicron will not be present in that world, so he won´t be a threat to your plans."

"Yes, that sounds all really good, but what do you want from me?"

"After you have taken control, when you are in what you would call a position of power, then we will ask something from you."

"Ah, so you want my support in your war when you have helped me to win my own."

"Remember," it said, "even if you would destroy your opponents here, you would still not be in any position to rule. But we offer you exactly that."

"And if I refuse?" he asked.

"Then we will contain you and eventually **destroy** you."

Not much of a choice, he thought.

But what these creatures proposed sounded really like everything he ever wanted. The only drawback was that if he accepted, he wouldn´t have the chance to take revenge on the Megatron and Optimus Prime he had known.

At least he would have the pleasure to ruin their counterparts.

"Well, as it is your offer sounds good," he said. "I accept."

As he had spoke the words, Starscream saw a bright light surrounding his bodiless form and once again found himself somewhere else.

xxxxxxx

_In another time and space_

He heard blaster fire around him, the sound of jet engines.

Starscream recognized the event instantly, the Battle of Autobot City. All around him Autobots and Decepticons were fighting each other.

In the distance, he saw his former wing-mate Thundercracker flying over the area and firing at a few Autobots on the ground.

He also saw Soundwave, Blitzwing, Ultra Magnus and Optimus Prime**,** who had obviously just landed in the embattled city-base.

And Megatron, shooting his way through a group of Autobots who were trying to hold their position.

Then finally he found who he was really looking for, himself.

He saw Starscream, Air Commander of the Decepticon army, levitating above the battle-field and watching for targets.

Literally like a second skin, he felt himself gliding into the well-known form and again looking through "his own" optics.

Yes, he thought, the situation couldn´t have been better.

Below him, Megatron shot an Autobot with his fusion cannon and nearly completely obliterated him. The upper half of the robot´s body was just blown to pieces.

Grapple, he recognized him. That was not how he remembered it. In his history, the Autobot architect survived the battle of Autobot city and even the entire war.

Wheeljack on the other hand, who he saw standing under a line of Autobots down there, should already be dead at this point of the fight.

So this was truly a different world. He could only hope that the aliens were keeping their word and certain problems won´t appear here.

One thing, however, was going to take place for sure. He could already see Optimus Prime fighting through the Decepticon lines, making his way to Megatron.

The fight of the two leaders was about to begin.

And Starscream prepared himself. He didn´t even need to actually possess this body. His counterpart completely shared his ambition. All he needed was to provide some influence, to pull some strings, to act now instead of later in the shuttle.

"Prime," he heard Megatron say the name of his old nemesis as he approached him.

"One shall stand one shall fall," Optimus announced before the two fighters tore into each other.

One shall stand? We will see Optimus, Starscream said to himself.

The fight was going nearly exactly like the last time.

Both of them were under the the strongest Transformers who had ever been created and also two of the most skilled warriors in Cybertron´s history, in both regards only a few were ever matching or even surpassing them.

They threw each other into walls and dealt out blows that left dents and breaks in their armor.

Alone, the physical strikes that they exchanged would destroy some smaller Cybertronians and even for them it caused noticable damage.

Megatron fired, but missed when Optimus tackled him with a wild charge and ripped the fusion gun from his arm.

During the struggle, Megatron draw a laser-sword and slashed across Optimus, causing a deep wound.

Starscream wanted to laugh as he saw his two greatest enemies causing each other so much harm. Neither of them had seen Starscream coming closer during their fight. They were too concentrated on each other.

Both of them were already weakened. While Megatron had been fighting for hours before Optimus even arrived, the Autobot leader had fought his way through a half dozen Decepticon warriors just to get to him.

They had already taken significant damage and a single mistake could now decide their duel, a mistake that was made.

Megatron was able to throw his opponent to the ground and tried to use this chance. In a single moment of anger and overconfidence he let his guard down while going for a direct attack on his downed opponent.

Optimus, who had just got up again, was able to throw his arms around him and was holding him in a death grip.

"I will rip out your optics," Megatron hissed hatefully. But the threat turned out to be empty.

The Autobot leader lifted him off the ground and threw him down hard on the metalic floor of the city.

As Megatron tried in vain to get up, he had time to pick up his own weapon that he had lost during the fight and point it at the Decepticon.

It happened just as Starscream remembered.

Megatron knew he was outmanouvered. He was on his knees, damaged and had a weapon pointed at him. In his state, he knew, it was uncertain if he could survive even a single blast.

But a few meters from him, he saw a gun lying on the ground.

"No more, Optimus Prime, have mercy I beg of you," he said with mock desperation.

Starscream smiled at the theatrics he was seeing.

Like the other time, he remembered Optimus let his foolish sentimentality get to him and let him hesitate.

If all was going as it should, Hot Rod would jump in in a few seconds to save his leader from his own misplaced compassion and his rash actions would only make everything worse.

Optimus would die and Megatron would end up helpless.

But that was a risk Starscream was not willing to take, not this time.

He charged his own weapons.

"You who are without mercy," Optimus said, caught between pity and anger, "now plead for it? I thought you were made of sterner stuff."

His problem was simple. He would have never thought that Megatron would react like this, he was surprised and that let him waver in the wrong moment.

Megatron had his hands on the gun, he pulled it up. Just as he was ready to fire, he was tackled by a flame colored Autobot.

Hot Rod was distracting him for a short time. But that also made it harder for Optimus to shoot back.

"Out of the way, Hot Rod!" he shouted.

Within a few seconds, Megatron had subdued the smaller robot and began firing at his opponent.

As the Autobot leader fell down, however, Megatron himself was struck in the back by a volley of laser-blasts.

* * *

**Author-notes:**

This story can be seen as a sequel to the Beast Wars episode "Possession".

The Beast Wars part of this story is playing in the second season, somewhere before "Code of a hero". That means Dinobot is still alive while characters like Scorpinok and Terrorsaur are dead.**  
**

I have made it a rule for this storty that Starscream can only possess other Decepti- or Predacons. That was nowhere stated, but since we have never seen him take anybody else, it seems to be the case.

I want to than Starfire201 who is my beta reader for this story.


	2. Chapter 2: The Ays have it

**Chapter 2**

He watched both Megatron and Optimus Prime fall, had seen his blasts burning through Megatron´s weakened body.

There was no way that even the now former leader of the Decepticons could survive this.

He felt a triumph like never before. All that he ever did, his entire existence, it came down to this single point in time. _Victory, _he would be the beginning of his absolute victory.

Starscream was now laughing loudly as he flew over the devastated area.

Besides him, only a single being had seen what had happened, the young Autobot who was now running to Optimus' side.

Hotrod was now turning to him. It seemed as if the Autobot was angry about his actions.

"Damn you!" the Autobot yelled as he began shooting at him.

Starscream only smiled. Strange, all he did was kill their worst enemy. So why was this guy so livid? he thought mockingly.

After dodging a few blasts, he fell back from Hotrod´s assault. No need to get into a fight now and he didn´t want to risk any damage to his "new" body.

It didn´t matter. He had what he wanted, both leaders were dying

That meant it was all his now.

As he got out of Hotrod´s reach, the ghost was slowly drawing back from the present Starscream´s mind.

He had killed Megatron, the Air Commander realized.

Ironically, the situation wasn´t so different from Starscream´s failed attempts in the past.

xxxxxxx

_Beast-wars era, 1 day "before" (flashback)_

The Predacons and Maximals were locked into one of their many stand-offs.

What they didn´t knew was that a well known spectator was watching their fight from a safe distance. Starscream´s spark was hiding between a rift in a nearby mountain, out of sight.

Despite being bodiless and having no optics or sensors, he was able to perceive things around him quite well. Why that was the case despite him lacking any physical means, he had to admit he himself didn´t know.

And while the robots of both sides were targeting each other, he himself was looking for a valuable target.

Some of them were looking quite different, he realized. Apparently, the fighters of the Beast Wars had done some upgrades, with Optimus Primal and "Megatron" first in line.

Their new forms looked more metallic and stronger than their original bodies, but they were still puny in his eyes, nothing in comparison to the original Transformers.

Ultimately it didn´t matter to him. All he was looking for was his new host body.

The two groups consisted of Optimus Primal, Dinobot, Cheetor, Rattrap, Tigertron and Airrazor at the one and Megatron, Inferno, Tarantulas, Blackarachnia, Rampage and Quick-Strike on the other side.

A few of them were fighting each other in close combat while others were exchanging fire from their positions of cover.

Their two leaders were under the ones who were fighting one on one.

"Well Optimus, I guess we can´t just call it a peace for now and you will just let us get what we want?" the Predacon leader asked him, seemingly relaxed, but with obvious sarcasm.

"In one word Megatron, no," Primal answered, going into a fighting stance.

He knew of his enemy´s habit for theatrics and was more than used to the fact that the Predacon often seemed to be talking to hear his own voice.

"I thought so," Megatron said with a smile. He was already aiming his blaster again.

The reason for the fight was over one of the many stasis pods that had been scattered over this planet as the ships of the Maximals and Predacons had first landed. Since then, a race had broken out between the two factions for the remaining stasis pods in order to recruit new forces.

Starscream already knew that the pod in question was defective and the Maximal-protoform inside had long ago perished.

So this entire battle was actually completely pointless. But it provided a good opportunity for him.

Primal and Megatron were occupied with each other. With some luck maybe they would weaken each other enough so that he could take out both of them.

If he could take command of the band of Predacons, maybe he wouldn´t even need the alien installation to destroy the Arc. And it would be a bonus to be in charge of a fighting group again, even if it was only a small band of rogues.

The only question was whose body he should take.

Cheetor and Rattrap were in a shooting match with Inferno and Blackarachnia.

Dinobot was clashing with Quick-Strike, and the two Maximals Tigertron and Airrazor were battling Tarantulas and the new Predacon called Rampage.

He was only able to take over those of Decepticon heritage, so all Maximals or reprogrammed protoforms fell out.

That left either Megatron himself, not a good idea since he had already targeted him for assassination, Dinobot or Tarantulas.

And he knew which of the two was stronger.

He saw that the duo of Airrazor and Tigertron was slowly getting the upper hand against their two opponents. Their advantage was that they, in contrast to the two Predacons, were actually cooperating and working together.

The one named Rampage, on the other hand, looked like a berserker who could barely hold himself back from attacking his own team-mates. His fighting style was brutal and barely in control.

Beside that there was something off about this one, something strange and irregular. Even as only a floating spark, he could feel it. Even if Rampage had not been a reprogrammed Maximal, he would have thought twice about trying to take him over.

Dinobot had won his fight, Starscream good.

The Predacon turned Maximal was standing above his defeated foe and in this moment, as nobody was paying attention, the spark drifted into the body of the unsuspecting robot.

Starscream was now looking through Dinobot's eyes. Quick-Strike was unconscious, he confirmed and it seemed nobody else had witnessed what just happened.

He smiled. The Maximals were winning this little battle, not that he cared, but Optimus by himself was now on the defensive. Maybe it was time for him to help "his" leader.

He aimed at the two robots.

But before he had the chance to shoot, he himself was attacked. A couple of missiles hit the ground close to him, causing him to lose his aim and forcing him to fight back. _Tarantulas_, he recognized the Predacon who was shooting at him in anger.

"You!" he shouted.

In the next moment the spider-con was hit by a plasma explosion and slammed against the next wall of rock.

The Maximal Cheetor was standing a few meters from him, holding a smoking gun in his hands. "You better look out," he told him.

Megatron, at this point, realized the state that his troops were in.

"Well, it seems luck is not with us today," he said. "In that case, goodbye Optimus Primal. Predacons retreat," he ordered.

The Predacon leader lifted off the ground, closely followed by his underlings, a few of them dragging along their deactivated comrades.

_No, _Starscream thought as he saw after the withdrawing Predacon group. He had been so close. If it had not been for the interference of that fool... But he still had his plan with the alien-device in the back-hand, so this didn´t matter in the end.

"Hey Dinobot," he heard Cheetor ask, "everything okay?"

"Yes Cheetor, everything is alright," Starscream answered.

xxxxxxx

_Autobot City in the year 2005 (end-flashback)_

The Decepticons were retreating. Behind them, Autobot City lay in ruins, the mangled bodies of dead or damaged Transformers all over the place, two of them belonging to the leaders of both factions.

Hotrod was kneeling next to Optimus.

"I shouldn´t have interfered," he said to Kup who was standing close to him. "You were right, it was Optimus' fight. I only made everything worse."

"You did what you thought was right kid," the older Autobot told him reassuringly. "We need to bring him to the med bay, now. Maybe Optimus can still be saved."

All over the city, Decepticon warriors were fleeing, a few carrying injured comrades, with the Autobots in some cases still shooting at them.

One of them was Astrotrain. The triple changer transformed into his train-mode at it´s largest size, pulling its full mass from sub-space, becoming the escape vehicle for the others.

Out of everyone present, there was only one real winner.

Air Commander Starscream was thinking about what had happened while he and the others boarded Astrotrain..

He had finally killed Megatron, after all these years. But it hadn´t been as he had imagined, not in the slightest.

He had speculated on Megatron´s demise and had also hoped for Prime´s, that was true, but he had not planned to act on it until later.

Secretly, he had to admit to himself he didn´t know why he acted in that way. It hadn´t been a conscious decision.

What happened was nearly as if something in him had taken over and acted on it´s own.

xxx

What he didn´t know was that he was more right than he could ever imagined.

Somewhere in the back of his consciousness the other Starscream, the bodiless spark, was watching the situation and his counterpart.

He scanned his other self´s mind, watching his memories. As far as he could tell the lives they had lived were for a great part identical up to this point, but not completely.

He could for example not find anything about his old plan to blow up the planet Earth to harvest the unleashed energy and to destroy Autobot and Decepticon alike, all those years ago. There were also other events that happened differently from what he remembered.

All in all, by his impression, he found his counterpart to be quite weak, at least by his standards. This other Starscream had never gone to the limits, never did the most extreme to reach his goals.

He was**,** by all rights**,** a pale shadow of his true self. But that was okay by him. His double would only serve as a host for his true mind anyway.

He knew from the mind of his counterpart that their two worlds were also identical in another point**: **the Decepticons ruled Cybertron.

And with Megatron and Optimus Prime out of the way it was now all his. If what the Vok had told him was true, Unicron would also not be here to derail everything like in the other world.

The only thing left was the price the Vok would demand for their help. With some luck**, **maybe the two sides would wipe each other out before they came to him, he thought.

And even if not, maybe he could still find a way to turn the situation to his advantage.

xxx

Astrotrain´s voice brought Starscream, both of him, out of their thoughts.

"Our mass is too great. We have to get lighter or we will never make it to Cybertron."

_Of course, the plan,_ it shot through his head, how could he forget about something like this?

Before the battle had started, the Air Commander and the triple changer had made a secret deal.

They knew that the chance that Megatron could be damaged during the fight would be high, even if his destruction was too much to hope for.

So Astrotrain had, on purpose, filled up with too little fuel to make it back to Cybertron. While it was enough to make it through the weightless space alone, it was not enough to withstand the gravitation sources on the way and to land safely.

The idea was simple**:** should Megatron be wounded during the fight, Starscream would order Astrotrain to carry them back to Cybertron. On their way, when it would be far too late to turn around, it would become clear that they wouldn´t make it.

Knowing his comrades**,** it would be easy to persuade the others to get rid of the wounded and of their leader. Maybe they would not even have to voice it themselves.

In case Megatron would be still intact at the end of the battle or already dead, they would warn the others about the danger and target a location on Earth to find some energon to refuel.

Maybe this would even have improved their own status under the troops.

The plan was perfect. Until he somehow managed to let it all completely slip his mind. And the idiot Astrotrain had**, **of course**,** not the sense to stop the execution by himself.

_In the background the other Starscream, the visitor, was silently laughing. It seemed that his partial possession had some effect on the mind of his double._

Megatron was already dead. So the entire plot had become senseless. All they would accomplish was pointlessly throwing good soldiers away.

Starscream remembered that he had seen Skywarp and Thundercracker under the injured, his wing-mates.

But now it was too late to get out.

"Fellow Decepticons," he said, playing his role, "Astrotrain had asked us to lighten our burden." The words tasted like acid in his mouth.

A murmur went through the lines at his words.

"In that case I say survival of the fittest," the Constructicon Bonecrusher burst out.

The five injured robots in question were the two elite seekers and all three Insecticons, five very valuable warriors.

Thundercracker and Skywarp had been his partners for millions of years, nearly since the date of his creation. It was not exaggerated to say they were his brothers.

Despite that, he would have been willing to sacrifice them to destroy Megatron. But this was completely senseless.

Starscream tried to think of a possible alternative, one that didn´t involve losing his own air-group. Maybe he and the other seekers could fly the rest of the way by themselves. But they were all low on energy too.

Maybe it was not yet too late to turn around to Earth.

In that moment a dark veil fell over his consciousness.

_Starscream had followed his counterpart´s thoughts. He didn´t knew if he should be moved or disgusted by this worry about his team-mates._

_But he just couldn´t let it happen_

Nobody recognized the short glowing in Starscream´s eyes as the ghost took control again.

"Well, I think majority vote shall decide. Everybody who is in favor of **Bonecrusher´s** suggestion may rise his hand," he said, pointing out where the idea suppostly came from, before he lifted his own arm.

The injured were watching in shock and horror what was playing out before their eyes.

"Aye." The voices halled through the room, all in favor.

None of them truly wanted to do this, but their own lives were threatened and they were Decepticons. They all believed that the risk of death was a constant factor in the lives of warriors and they believed in their own survival before that of others.

"And against?" Starscream asked.

Only the five damaged robots raised their voices.

"The majority is in favor," the Air Commander said smugly.

He watched with a diabolical grin as the wounded were,despite pleas and protests, dragged and thrown out of the air-lock.

In their new forms as Cyclonus and Scourge, he remembered, Skywarp and Thundercracker would have become two of his most dangerous rivals.

It was better to get rid of them now.

The wrecked bodies of the five warriors were drifting through space while the shuttle continued his way to Cybertron.

* * *

Author´s note: In the beast wars part of this chapter Starscream notices the new trans-metal forms of some of the characters, but of course does not recognize them as such. He thinks of them as simple upgrades.

He also understandably mistakes Rampage, who was created from a copy of his own spark, for a reprogrammed protoform. But on a subconscious level he realize something is strange about him.


	3. Chapter 3: Coronation

**Chapter 3**

Starscream was standing on the podium before the great plaza of the Decepticon capital Polyhex. Like some king from an organic world, he was wearing a long cape and a crown that Astrotrain had just placed on his head.

Some in the crowd were looking at him in barely concealed frustration, partly because they were not the ones to become leader and partly because of the pompous and foreign ceremony that rubbed their failure practically into their faces.

Not that he particularly cared.

It was Starscream himself who picked the process, based on initiation rituals of rulers from other worlds.

Now that he won the struggle and secured his leadership, he was holding a speech to officially start his reign and to begin a new era.

"Fellow Decepticons," he began, "as your new leader I will…"

He never got the chance to finish. Before he could continue, he was cut off by the sound of the engines of a large space jet which was heading right towards them.

The machine was going down right in the middle of the place. As the jet had lowered to the height of only a few meters, it was flying directly through the assembled crowd, leaving a few of them only a few moments to get out of the way. Despite this, it did not crash or hit a single Decepticon.

Some part of Starscream had to admit this was one of the most impressive displays of air-flight that even he had ever seen.

Then the cockpit opened and a tall purple robot jumped out who he had never seen before. But he saw the Decepticon mark on the stranger's chest. Behind him, the jet transformed into a second robot of the same size.

What was this? An assassination attempt, so early in his reign?

"Who disrupts my coronation?" he asked aloud.

"Coronation, Starscream? This is bad comedy," the unknown Decepticon answered.

There was something about him, his posture and his attitude that practially shouted a single name at Starscream.

"Megatron, is that you?" he said.

"Here is a hint," the robot replied.

He transformed into some sort of artillery cannon and fired at Starscream nearly instantly.

All he could feel was how the energy was burning through him and how his spark was slowly expelled from his body.

xxx

Starscream awoke from his recharge. After taking over Megatron´s old office and consuming his load of energon, he had been shutting his systems down for a while.

He didn´t knew why he did just had a vision of a stranger coming in and killing him at his own coronation and why he had somehow confused this stranger with Megatron. Maybe it was just what the organics called a weird dream.

His real coronation had gone completely different. It was his moment of triumph, just like he had planned. He remembered what had happened.

xxxxxxx

_One day earlier _

Cybertron was the home planet of the Transformers and at especially at this point in time the center of the Decepticon empire.

These days, the planet was a weapons staring fortress controlled by one of the strongest military forces in the known universe.

This was the world Astrotrain returned to.

The shuttle was landing at the space port of the Decepticon capital sector Poliphex and the remaining warriors were stepping outside. Some of them were barely able to stand anymore.

They were all already been low on energon from the long battle and the following fight over leadership inside Astrotrain, that had broken out only minutes after the had thrown out the wounded, brought a lot of them down completely.

But they were still far better off than the guys they had just discarded into space.

Only one of them walked with actual pride. Starscream was the one who came out of the challenge as the winner.

Of course, he had spent most of the fight hiding in a corner and then shot the last fighter standing in the back. It was not his fault that none of the others noticed him and that they were too busy tearing each other apart.

The results were the same: he was the winner, because there had been nobody left to question him.

"Decepticons ," he gave his first order, "you are all low on energon, go re-energize. Soundwave, Scrapper, give repairs to everyone who needs them."

He said this with a fake-benevolent tone that they didn´t like. It was all only the new leader trying to look good in front of his troops.

They didn´t need him to tell them to do what were their duties anyway. Blitzwing was especially mad since he had been the one who Starscream shot in the back.

The troops broke apart and everybody was going about their own business. The ones with light damage followed Soundwave and the Constructicons to the repair bay, others were going to the energon storages and a few, namely Astrotrain, Thrust, Ramjet and surprisingly Rumble were following Starscream as he walked back to Decepticon HQ.

"Well leader, care to tell us what your plans are now?" the cassette asked him.

Damn midget, Starscream thought. Soundwave had probably left him here on purpose to spy on him.

"You will see soon, my dear Rumble," he told him, "and now leave me alone. I have other things to attend to."

As their small group reached the gates of headquarters, they ran into a real surprise.

"What the slag," Rumble said as he saw them.

Even Starscream was surprised at some level.

"Aren´t you supposed to be dead? he asked as he saw the three robots.

xxxxxxx

_Autobot City, Earth, at the same time_

Ironhide, Prowl, Ratchet, Brawn, Huffer, Grapple and Windcharger, that was the list of causalities from the last battle. The first four, more than half of them alone, were the crew of the shuttle that the Decepticons had hyjacked to infiltrate their defenses in the first place.

Added to that came a large number of wounded and the damage to the city itself.

Ironically**,** despite all this it could have been much worse. If Hotrod had not realized that Decepticons were on board and opened fire, if Optimus had not arrived in time with reinforcements. They could have lost the entire city, they could all be dead.

The Autobot leader was still lying in the medical complex under intensive care. Wheeljack and Perceptor had been working on him for hours, doing their best to keep him alive. But none of them was a true medic.

This was one of the many reasons that the death of Ratchet was one of the greatest losses of the last battle.

"How is he?" Ultra Magnus asked them in obvious concern.

He and Optimus had been friends even long before the war. Back then they had still been known as Orion and Dion, two simple young Cybertronians.

"He will live," Wheeljack told him. "But how long it will take for him to recover, we cannot tell."

"Do what you can until we get First Aid here. He will survive, that is what truly counts."

xxxxxxx

_Beast wars era _

"We are ready to seal the cave Optimus, " Cheetor called out.

In the last hour they had secured the alien installation they had discovered and were now about to close it off.

"Good, do it, then we can go. We have been here far too long."

"We had to make sure that this is the only entrance to this place, " Rhinox reminded him, "and we had to made sure that the Predacons will not find it."

"And that is the problem," Optimus replied. "We were not quite subtle as we pursued Starscream. It would be our bad luck that they might actually have traced us here."

"Yes Maximals indeed, that may actually be the case." They heard a voice coming from the end of the cave.

Behind them stood Megatron, Blackarachnia, Inferno, Tarantulas, Rampage and Waspinator.

"What do we have here? It looks as if the aliens had constructed this, yes."

"You're right, but we won´t let you get your hands on it, Megatron."

"We will see, Maximal, and besides that, every chance to destroy you is as well worth it. Predacons, attack!"

Both sides draw their weapons and got ready to fire.

"Ah, Optimus," Rhinox, who was still standing next to the alien machinery, said urgently.

As they turned around, they saw that the devices had once again come to life, as if (and from what they knew, this was possibly the case) it had sensed the presence of so many violent intruders.

Waves of energy flashed through the machine, building up more and more power. Rhinox at this point had understood just enough from reading its display to realize one thing.

"It's overloading!" he screamed.

"You heard him!" Optimus said. "Run!"

"Change of plans Predacons," Megatron announced. "Retreat!"

Both Maximals and Predacons, who had been all too willing to fight each other a few seconds earlier, were now running together towards the exit.

The moment Megatron reached the cave´s entrance, however, he turned around.

"I am sorry Optimus Primal," he shouted, "but I fear you won´t be coming with us."

With that, he shot at the rock formation above them.

The falling debris slowed the Maximals down and sealed their doom.

Optimus, Rhinox, Cheetor, Dinobot, Rattrap, and even the Predacons Blackarachnia and Waspinator were not able to make it.

The rest of them barely made it out in time.

Behind them, the entire upper half of the mountain exploded. The resulting shockwave was enough to blow all of them off their feet.

A few moments later the stunned and disoriented Predacons caught themselves again and were struggling to get up again.

Megatron turned back to see what had happened and a smile formed on his face.

"Yes, yes!" he called out in triumph.

The part of the mountain where the entrance of the cave had been located seemed to have completely vanished from existence, all trees in a distance of hundreds of meters around had been leveled. There were deep cracks in the rock formation and even some of the neighbouring mountains had crumbled.

One thing was clear from the first look: There was no way that anybody could have survived this.

"Finally, we win," Megatron said.

"But what about Waspinator and Blackarachnia royalty?" Inferno asked him.

"Their loss will be remembered," the Predacon leader replied. "But one thing is sure, with Optimus and the other out of the way, the Beast Wars are as good as won for us, yes."

xxx

At the same time, somewhere else, the five Maximals and two Predacons woke up in a dark empty room.

"Where are we?" Rattrap asked**,** confused.

"Welcome**,** travelers." They heard a voice speaking to them. "We have brought you here to make you an offer."

xxxxxxx

_Cybertron, Decepticon headquarters, the "year 2005"_

Before them stood the three Insecticons, the same they had just thrown into space.

"So I guess the ones who had been acompanying us to earth had been clones," Starscream said. "Very interesting."

"Yes, we sent clones with you instead of going ourselves, -selves," Shrapnel replied. As always he was repeating the last word, caused by a programming glitch.

"And as it turned out that was a good idea," Kickback commented. "There are already rumors going on about what happened."

"It is not as if we had much of a choice," Thrust defended himself.

"Of course not," Kickback said sarcastically. "And I guess we can be happy that we had not been there."

"But aren't the clones only mindless drones?" Ramjet asked. "The ones in the shuttle were talking, acting on their own."

"Originally, yes they were," Bombshell told them. "But over time we have learned. It is complicated and it costs time, but it is possible to create a sentient clone."

"That is all very interesting," Starscream pointed out. "But let me make one thing clear. I am leader of the Decepticons now and I expect my orders to be followed. I am not Megatron and if I should ever summon you, I also expect it to actually **be** you."

"We understand you," Shrapnel replied, "and you are right, you are not Megatron. We will see how you made yourself out as leader and when we will decide how to react, react."

With these words, the three transformed into their insect-modes and flew off.

"Damn you," Starscream cursed quietly after them. He would show them what kind of a leader he would be.

But for now he had other things to do. He turned to the others.

"Leave me alone now. I have business to attend to. You will find me in **my** office if the need arises," he told them.

"Yes Starscream," the others answered.

xxx

The Air Commander entered the room that had until today belonged to Megatron.

Two beings were looking through the seeker's optics, both partly in control, both variants of the same person.

The office seemed somehow empty now, with Megatron gone. It was as if there was something missing, a void waiting to be filled with his presence, he thought.

One of them had been in the same situation before, only to fail one day later. But not this time, this time he had made sure Megatron was dead, this time there was no Unicron to bring them all down.

That meant the Vok had been telling the truth.

A small part of the Air Commander nearly regretted the loss of the Decepticon leader, nearly. For so long the quest to replace him had been the sense of his life and now this was over. The greatest challenge of his existence was over.

But there would be others. Now that he was leader, it would be conquest and the destruction of his enemies. From now on his his existence would only be a long line of triumphs.

"Starscream." He heard a voice.

As he looked up, he saw something that could only be described as strange, even by his standards.

It was a silhouette that seemed only to be made of glowing energy. The shape was obviously female, by similar standards as Cybertronians or humanoids and it was talking to him.

"I see you have been busy," it said.

"Who, what are you?" he asked.

"You have already forgotten me? And I only have tried to make my form appear closer to your understanding of life."

He knew that voice.

"You," he said. He remembered one of the Vok who had spoken to him.

"Yes," it replied**.** "I have come to, as you kind would call it, discuss our part of the deal."

In the moment he realized who he was talking to, the spirit, the other Starscream was taking complete control of the body.

"What do you want?" he asked with barely concealed annoyance.

"I should inform you that the others have by now found out about our actions and are preparing to move against us."

"So, that is your problem, isn´t it?"

"The other side will never let you keep this position that we have given you in this universe. That means it is in your own best interest to work with us."

"I understand."

"We have much to offer you, weapons and technology that can be used against both yours and our enemies."

The expression on Starscream´s face brightened.

"But first…"

"What?"

"Even my people need energy and resources to build."

"What do you want me to do?"

"You remember a planet called Paradron?"

"Of course, a planet of Autobot exiles, extreme pacifists, cowards who fled Cybertron to escape the war," he could not resist commenting.

"And extremely rich on energon," Starscream realized. "The Autobots themselves destroyed it to keep it from falling into Galvatron´s hands."

"The planet still exists in this world. Its location is the same as in your universe. You know where to find it. Its inhabitants deny any form of violence, even to defend themselves.

"We have been studying you Starscream, we know your talents. That is one of the reasons we have chosen you as an ally.

"Go there and do what you are best in, attack them, enslave them, use their resources and their lives and when you are finished, get rid of them."

"Yes, I will do exactly that. I admit our partnership is beginning to really pay off."

"Take only troops you can trust for this mission," the Vok said to him.

"I can trust noone," Starscream nearly laughed. "Only myself, only myself," he repeated.

"Take the ones you think are best suited. We will contact you again when we are ready for the next step," the Vok informed him before it vanished.

Yes, he thought, this alliance might be a far better idea than he had initially thought.

Suddenly Starscream realized that someone was at the door.

For a moment, he was attempted to draw his weapons. Had someone already found him?

Until his visitor identified himself.

"You wanted to speak to me, Commander," Shockwave greeted him in a nearly emotionless tone.

Nearly emotionless. Starscream knew despite his logical mind Shockwave was not happy about about Megatron´s demise and the fact that he had taken over as leader, especially since he had a hand in this event.

But right now he could care less. Maybe the overseer of Cybertron would need to be removed in the future, maybe he would learn to accept the change in command, they would see.

"Yes, Shockwave come in," Starscream invited him as the door opened.

"I am aware you know about the recent loss of some of our troops?" he asked him.

If Shockwave was at some level angered about the comment he didn´t show it.

"I am aware," he replied.

"I have sent for you because I want to discuss ways to refill our ranks and maybe even improve them. I am especially interested in an old idea of your domain."

_Only myself, he thought._

"Tell me, do you remember an interesting project of yours named Sunstorm?"

xxxxxxx

_The great plaza before Decepticon HQ, a few hours later_

Starscream was standing on the podium before the great plaza. Like some king from an organic world, he was wearing a long cape and a crown that Astrotrain had just placed on his head.

Some in the crowd were looking at him in barely concealed frustration, partly because they were not the ones to become leader and partly because the pompous and foreign ceremony that practically rubbed their failure into their faces.

Not that he particularly cared.

It was Starscream himself who picked the process, based on initiation rituals of rulers from other worlds.

Now that he won the struggle and secured his leadership, he was holding a speech to officially start his reign and to begin a new era.

"Fellow Decepticons," he began, "as your new leader I wil win this war once and for all. I will lead you to new glory. We will take Earth as we did Cybertron and finally wipe the Autobots out. And then we will conquer the galaxy."


	4. Chapter 4: Strangers

This chapter has taken a long time. I had to deal with a lot of other stuff in the last weeks and was pretty much fully preoccupied. But here finally is the fourth chapter.

* * *

**Chapter 4**

_Autobot __C__ity__,__Ea__rth_

"I think we have done it, Prime, " the medic told him. "Tell me, how are you feeling?" he asked.

"Quite well, First Aid, " the Autobot leader answered while he was testing to move his limbs experimentally.

"It seems Optimus is ready to return to duty, " Perceptor pointed out.

"He is, " First Aid said. "Take it slowly for some time, Prime. Your wounds are repaired but you are still not back to your perfect state."

"I will be careful, " Optimus promised him. "And thank you First Aid, without your help I would probably not be standing right now. You will be a great chief medic for this army."

"But nobody could replace Ratchet, " the Protectobot replied.

"Nobody could, but I am sure you will do your best," the Autobot leader said.

With these words, he turned to leave the room.

"Optimus is right, First Aid. We couldn´t have done it without you, " Perceptor told him, "at least not at this time. Am I not right, Wheeljack? Wheeljack?"

For a few moments the scientist didn´t answer. His optics, they noticed, had gone dull for a moment before flashing up again.

"Yes, " he answered, his voice sounding a bit unsure. "It is all okay."

"Are you alright?" Perceptor asked him.

"Yes, I only worked too long without recharging, that is all. Please excuse me, I still have things to do."

"Of course, " the other Autobot replied as Wheeljack left the room.

xxxxxxx

_Cybertron_

Under the surface of the planet Cybertron was a nearly infinite system of tunnels, chambers, corridors and hidden installations located that none of the living, even the leaders of their two factions, actually completely knew.

At this moment the new Decepticon leader Starscream and Shockwave, the governeur and guardian of Cybertron were entering one of this installations.

"I see your secret labs are still fully functional," Starscream commented. "Very good. Have you brought Sunstorm himself here?"

"I have," Shockwave responded.

"Good."

"Why are you interested in him, `sir´?" He said the word relunctantly to Starscream.

It was several years back now that Shockwave had first realized an ambitious project, the cloning of Transformers.

After first hearing of the concept from the Insecticons on Earth, he had tried to make it useful for the main Decepticon forces.

The seeker Sunstorm had been based on none other than the Air Commander Starscream himself. His designs, his abilities, even his spark itself were created after his own model.

Starscream, at least the version of this universe, had of course been somewhat of two minds about this. At first he had been more than angry when he heard what Shockwave was planning.

He had always been known for his pride in his own self, others would call it arrogance. So the thought of no longer being unique didn´t settle well with him.

But eventually, he started to think about the possibilities. To have someone with the same abilities and with a similar personality around might have its advantages. So he had in the end actually volunteered for the experiment.

He was of course aware that Shockwave would program the copy with greater loyalty than himself. Otherwise, Megatron would have never agreed to made him of all people the template.

But if he would be able to draw this loyalty to himself instead, he might have been able to earn an valuable asset for future use.

The experiment, however, soon turned out to be a failure. Sunstorm, as the new created warrior came to be known, began to show signs of mental instability. While he at first only periodically showed signs of uncontrolled agression, which wasn´t even that uncommon for a Decepticon warrior, the full extent became soon clear when he started to run amok. Claiming his own creation to be an act against nature, he started to "punish" the ones responsible.

He was finally stopped as he attempted to kill both Shockwave and Starscream and placed into stasis, till now.

The same robot was now lying inside a stasis unit in the middle of the hidden lab complex under the surface of Cybertron.

For the ghost, all this was new knowledge. These events had not happened in the world he came from. But that didn´t mean it wasn´t useful.

"Can he be reactivated?" Starscream asked as they were standing before the large casket that was holding the clone seeker.

"Yes he can. But do you really want to do this? The last time he was not exactly rational."

"I even want you to create others like him. You have surely learned a lot with your first attempt. See our friend Sunstorm here as the prototype.

"And besides that, I have plans for a few other, let us say _special_, projects that I want to have realized."

xxxxxxx

_Beast Wars era, "earlier" in time _

The Maximals and the two Predacons who had unwillingly accompanied them were still disoriented from their sudden change of environment.

For a short moment, they were worried that Blackarachnia and Waspinator would decide to attack them again. But they quickly realized that these two, like themselves, had completely other things on their minds.

"Where are we?" Rattrap asked.

Optimus looked around, taking in his surroundings. He remembered being in a similar place before.

"I have a suspicion," he replied.

"Ah, we see you remember your last meeting with our kind, Maximal," the voice addressed them again.

"You are the Vok, the beings that are in control of this planet."

"That is correct. Allthough we are not the same ones that you have encountered before."

"What do you mean by that?" Optimus asked them.

"For a long time our kind was, acted, and thought as one. We have made it our purpose to protect and aid the time-line and especially this world. But recently an event caused a disagreement in our ranks, something that has never happened before."

"What kind of event?"

"Something that yourself have witnessed."

"You mean the attempted destruction of this planet, " Optimus stated.

It didn´t take him long to guess. There was only one event he had been present for that justified the sort of unrest the voice was talking about.

"Yes. The Vok have sworn to preserve the time-line. Your constant interference has endangered things. Some of us thought that this justified the sterilisation of this planet and a new start."

"And if you will allow the question, what side of this argument were you on?" Rattrap wanted to know.

The voice didn´t bother answering the question and continued:

"The renegade faction had made an alliance with the being you had confronted before you were brought here."

"Starscream, " Rhinox concluded.

"What is he up to?" Cheetor asked.

This time the voice answered the question.

"He was sent to another facet of reality, what your kind would call a parallel universe. There, under the influence of the other side he has taken over the Decepticons."

"A parallel world?" Optimus repeated.

"Well, doesn´t that mean at least we got rid of him?" Rattrap asked hopefully. "It's not as if he could hurt us in that other reality."

"Wrong, " the voice answered. "Under the instructions of the other side he is beginning to build up new troops and develop dangerous weapons. Together they could become a threat to the entire multiverse."

"Why have you brought us here?" Blackarachnia asked.

"You will follow him. We will supply you with the means to defeat him and put and end to his plans."

"You want us to travel into that other world and bring him back?" Rattrap said incredulously. "If you're that powerful why don´t you do it yourself?"

"The others have started to attack us. We have to concentrate our attention on them. Your kind is our best option."

"Just great."

"And what if we refuse?" Waspinator wanted to know.

"We have taken you from a specific point in time and space, exactly at the moment of the explosion. With this action, we ourselves have disrupted the time-line. If you are not willing to cooperate, we will send you back to the exact same point we have taken you from."

"Right into the center of the explosion," Blackarachnia commented.

"Correct."

"Nice," Rattrap said. "That means we don´t really have a choice right?"

"We agree to your terms, " Optimus declared. "You don´t have to blackmail us."

"We aren´t. We were only stating facts. A disruption of the time-line must not happen without a good reason and if you don´t follow your mission, there is none."

"I understand, " the Maximal answered grimly.

"We have an agreement. We will try to keep interference at a minimum and improve your chances. You will travel, but not your bodies, only your essences will."

"Wait, what do you mean by that?" Optimus asked him.

But before he could say anything else, they felt themselves being ripped from their bodies and thrown into the darkness of space.

xxxxxxx

_Autobot __C__ity__,__E__arth (the alternate world)_

Rhinox was wandering through a place he had never seen before. It seemed to be some sort of military base run by the Autobots.

_Where was he?_ he asked himself.

The last thing he remembered was their confrontation with the Vok and then floating in space. It was as if he remembered falling down on an inhabitated planet and then nothing until his optics activated again.

In one of the glass windows at the wall he saw his own reflection, a white Autobot with a face-mask and a car alt-mode.

For a moment he felt disoriented. This wasn´t his body. What had happened?

"…_You will travel, but not your bodies, only your essence__s_ _will." _He remembered the words of the Vok.

Was this it? Had their sparks, their personalities been transferred into new bodies? It would explain a lot.

From the point of view of the Vok that probably made sense.

As he had walked around for some time and seen more of the place, he began to recognize where he was.

Autobot City on Earth. He had once seen pictures in historical documents.

What had that robot a few minutes ago called him? Wheeljack, the legendary scientist of the Arc crew.

He was inside the body of one of the Autobots of the great war and it was very likely that he was now right in the middle of this conflict, at least in the version that happened in this alternate world.

And Starscream was somewhere out there, planning Primus knows what.

He had to find the others.

xxxxxxx

The last thing he remembered was drifting helplessly in space, slowly dying from lack of energon.

Now he activated his optics again. His first thought was to check his systems and he knew instantly that something had changed.

He was no longer himself. As he looked at his body he saw that his armor was completely in a deep purple and he was much taller than before.

Close to him, he realized, was a bizarre looking robot who, like him, was struggling to stand up. The stranger was blue, had bat-like wings, claws and a metallic beard.

Next to them were three others. All of them showed some similarities in design. They were all about the same height, their alt-modes seemed to be different sort of jets and their armor was in colors of blue and purple.

He had a feeling that he himself now appeared in a similar form.

Around them was only a large and empty room whose end he could not really make out.

_What has happened? _He thought.

"Who are you? Where are we?" the robot who had once been Skywarp asked.

"Welcome, " they heard a voice greeting them, but couldn´t made out where it came from.

"Who said that?" the bearded robot with the bat-like wings called out.

"Who we are is of no importance to you, " the voice said. "But you may call us the Vok. We have taken you from the point in space where your kind had abandoned you, and saved you."

"The others, they threw us into space, " one of them remembered.

"Yes, they just left us to die, " the bearded blue robot said in anger and horror.

"We have taken your personalities, what you call your sparks, and transferred them into these new bodies, " the voice told them.

"Thundercracker?" the first robot who had awoken asked, turning to the others.

"Yes, " the blue one answered, "but according to my databanks my name is now Scourge."

"Cyclonus, " he replied, telling his own new name.

"I am Wrath." One of the other three introduced himself.

He looked very similar to Cyclonus, the only exception was that he was wearing a face mask and had two weapons mounted on his arms instead of carrying a hand-blaster.

"You can call me Blade, " another said.

This one was built sleeker and had more more in common with the usual seeker design. Like his name suggested, he was carrying a sword at his side.

"Specter, " the third robot told them. He had some ressemblance to Scourge, but was missing the decorative beart and his wings were formed differently, smaller and more angular shaped.

"Why the new identities?" Thundercracker, now Scourge, asked the voice. "Why have you not just restored us as we were?"

"The purpose was anonymity. It might be advantageous for your task."

"One moment, " Scourge spoke up. "Yes, you have saved our lives, but that doesn´t mean we are working for you."

"Ah, maybe it is not such a good idea to offend them, " Cyclonus whispered to him, "at least until we know where we are."

"We just expect you to act in your own interest, " the voice answered.

Before them in the air appeared a holographic picture. They all recognized the scene instantly, the battle of Autobot City, more precisely the fight between Megatron and Optimus Prime.

But then the replay concentrated on someone else.

"Starscream, " Cyclonus said angrily. "He was behind what happened to us, I know it."

"How do you know so many details?" Scourge wanted to know.

"We have our ways. We have been watching the intruder since he entered your realm of existence."

"Intruder?" Scourge asked confused.

The scene continued and they all watched in shock as some bizarre thing that somehow ressembled a bodiless floating spark appeared and entered the Air Commander´s body.

For a few moments they saw his optics glow in a twisted way before things continued to play out.

"The Starscream you know was taken over, possessed by the spark of a being from another universe, an alternate doppelganger of himself."

Next they saw the Air Commander shooting Megatron in the back.

"Why should we believe any of this?" Cyclonus questioned. If this was true, he thought, then this being was responsible for Megatron´s demise and also nearly for their own.

"You are free to find confirmation by yourself. What we want from you is to expose this being for what it truly is and to stop him."

Scourge and Cyclonus looked at each other, then at the other three. They came to an agreement.

"We accept your terms, " Scourge said.

xxxxxxx

_On __E__arth at the same time_

Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus were standing together inside a cave somewhere at the west coast of North America.

Before them was the device that was meant to be the key for the Autobot´s next war campaign.

"I can not believe that this had been here the entire time, " Ultra Magnus said.

"Believe it, " Optimus replied. "It was right under our optics."

Hidden here underground was an old discarded Decepticon space bridge, abandoned here for possible decades.

"The space bridge network of the Decepticons is still intact, even if it´s use had decreased. But this one is still functional, as far as we know, without their knowledge. This will be our way behind Cybertron´s defenses."


	5. Chapter 5: Plans and actions

**Chapter 5**

_Autobot __City Earth_

After walking through the city for some time without any real idea what to look for, Rhinox/Wheeljack, much to his surprise, came across a very irritated looking pink colored female Autobot.

She was just standing there in the middle of the corridor, watching her surroundings in silent anger.

As he saw her, he felt a jolt deep inside himself. It was as if something in his core itself reacted.

It had been the Vok who had transferred their sparks into these bodies. Was it possible that they also did something more, gave them a way to identify the others.

The longer he kept looking at her, the more he had a feeling of recognition.

"Blackarachnia?" he asked.

For a moment**,** the femme looked at him in surprise.

"Yes," she finally replied angrily.

"It's me, Rhinox."

For a moment, she seemed to follow the impulse to reach for her weapon.

"You," she said aloud.

"If you ever want to return, I'd advise you to drop the hostilities for now," he told her.

"Where are we?" she asked him in an irritated tone.

"This is Autobot City, apparently somewhere during the great war. It seems the aliens have brought us to wherever Starscream had been sent."

"Great, that means we're in the past?"

"Not really. Judging by what they have told us, it is more like an alternate world, " he replied. "And if we want to get back we should better find him as quickly as possible."

"I am thinking the same way," they heard another voice speak up.

Standing behind them was a large, nearly completely green, Autobot. Rhinox recognized the figure as Springer, another legendary Autobot.

But as they saw him, they had the same strange feeling as they'd had before.

"You are one of us," Rhinox said.

"Yes, if you are who I think."

They noticed something about the stance and the tone of the other robot.

"Optimus?" he asked.

"Yes, but certainly not in body, " he replied. "If I am not wrong, this is Springer, the triple changer."

"You are not wrong," Rhinox told him. "The body you inhabit right now is Springer´s, just like this one belongs to the scientist Wheeljack."

"That leaves the question what happened to the true owners of these bodies, " Optimus brought up the valid question.

"There are two possibilities. Either the original personalities are still there inside, but suppressed or the Vok have stored the sparks somewhere else."

"Don´t ask me which is worse."

"From what we have seen about this species, I would put barely anything beyond them," Rhinox said. "And I am not sure how much this group of them is any different than the other."

"It seems for this one time you are taller than I am, " he said jokingly.

xxxxxxx

At the same time inside the main building of the city, the leading members of the Autobots were holding a conference together with representatives of the human race.

Present were Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Jazz and Kup for the Autobots and on the side of the humans their old friend Spike Witwicky, ambassador to Cybertron who had just recently returned from Moon Base One, his wife Carly who was also working in the embassy and two high ranked members of the military military and the recently founded Earth Defense Command, the Generals Hallo and Fairborn.

They had met to discuss the coming campaign against the Decepticons on Cybertron. While General Hallo was enthusiastic about the idea that the Autobots would start an offensive against their common enemy, Spike and Nathaniel Fairborn were a bit more skeptical about the practicality of this plan, now with the heavy damage that was dealt to their troops.

"I think the last attack has more than proven that the Decepticons are still a threat to our world. So it will be a good thing that the Autobots are finally attacking them on their own ground," Hallo stated.

"Nobody denies that they are a threat," Spike said. "The question is, is now the right time for this, while the Autobots are weakened?"

"Excuse me mister Witwicky, I don´t want to offend you, but you are an ambassador, not a soldier. I don´t think you have enough military experience to judge this."

"Excuse **me** General," Carly replied in her husband´s place, "Spike and I may not be military, but we have been involved in this particular war deeper and for longer than the most others, so I think we are qualified to speak about this matter."

"You have to admitt Mr. Witwicky has a point here Hallo," General Fairborn suggested. "The Autobots are already weakened and realistically they are the only thing that is protecting us from the Decepticons. If this campaign fails, we could end up in far greater danger than we are now." As he said this he was also looking in Optimus' direction.

"The Decepticons are still reorganizing their forces and just like us they had losses," the Autobot leader explained. "As our spies informed us, they had lost a number of important warriors and Starscream had only recently taken over as leader. They will never await a counter-attack so quickly."

The "loss" Optimus was referring to was the decision to abandon some of their men in space.

"In any case, we will leave enough troops to defend Earth when necessary," he stated.

"That is good to know," Spike replied, "but…"

Before he had a chance to continue his thought, they heard the sound of explosions from outside.

xxxxxxx

The group of jets arrived just outside the city. Under normal circumstances, they would have long been detected by the base´s defense systems, but since the area was still lying in ruins from the last battle, there were no defenses left to speak of.

The five Decepticons were not seen until they were right over the place and only seconds before they opened fire.

"You know the plan, " Cyclonus, who was flying at the top of the formation, said. "Attack." At these words, they split up and began their run-up on the base.

Laser blasts hit the buildings and the ground between the Autobots who had been standing at the outside. But so far they didn´t seem to be targeting someone directly, at least for the moment.

While Cyclonus, closely followed by Wrath and Blade, continued to circle over the city, Scourge and Specter separated from their group, transformed into robot mode and gliding down in the direction of the main complex.

"Decepticons are attacking, " Optimus Primal, whose spark was in Springer´s body, said.

"Great, just great, " Blackarachnia/Arcee exclaimed loudly.

"Do you recognize those Cons?" Primal asked Rhinox who, aside from the absent Dinobot, had the greatest historical knowledge in their group.

"I may be wrong, but I think the leader of that air group is Cyclonus."

"Galvatron´s second in command?" Optimus asked alarmed.

"Exactly."

"Well, that's just Prime, " he said as the three remaining jets were beginning to close up on them.

One moment later they were under fire and were trying to take cover.

xxx

The remaining Autobots in the city had just been taken by surprise by a group of Decepticons they had never seen before.

Optimus Prime, closely followed by Ultra Magnus and Kup came just face to face with these attackers.

A short distance away, they saw a small group consisting of Wheeljack, Springer and Arcee already involved in a shoot out with the enemy.

"Do you know who these Decepticons are?" Ultra Magnus asked.

"I have never seen them before," Optimus replied.

"It doesn´t matter who they are, " Kup said. "They are attacking the city."

"Springer, what has happened here?" Optimus asked the triple changer.

For a moment Primal could only stare at the robot before him, the legendary Optimus Prime, standing here in form and steel.

"Springer, " the Autobot leader repeated.

"Nothing, they just flew in and opened fire," he replied as he caught himself again.

"The city´s mostly destroyed. Our entire defense system is down, so these guys could simply land right on our doorstep without us noticing," Kup remarked.

"I fear you are right, " Ultra Magnus responded. "I think Spike and General Fairborn really had a point about our weakness at the moment. We will have to do something about this, and quickly."

Primal listened to their conversation but didn´t say anything. He didn´t know enough about what was going on here to make an intelligent response.

"We will deal with this matter as soon as this is over," Optimus Prime said as he returned fire to the Decepticons.

Above them Cyclonus fired a couple of missiles in their direction.

Before they could do any damage, Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus were able to shoot the projectiles down.

After this, the three jets transformed and landed directly before them.

"Who are you? Optimus asked.

"My name is Cyclonus," the leader said. "These are my partners Wrath and Blade. We just came to introduce ourselves."

"You are renegades?"

"Not exactly. Things are a bit complicated. But I don´t have the time to explain them to you."

"What do you want?" the Autobot leader asked cautiously. Something about the Decepticon´s demeanor told him that he was planning something.

xxx

In a different part of the city, the two remaining members of the Decepticon group were on their way to their intended target.

As they had planned, while the others drew the attention of the Autobots from them, they had been able to enter the main base to get what they were looking for.

Scourge and Specter had just entered a side building when they were confronted with a trio of Autobots they recognized as Bluestreak, Hoist and Beachcomber.

After a short moment of surprise, it came to a brief shoot-out. The fight however ended as quickly as it began, the Autobots were simply no match for the new designed Decepticons.

Beside Specter appeared two seemingly identical copies of himself, holographic pictures that were a new special ability that he was given at his re-creation.

Not knowing which of the figures to target, they were confused and the most of their blasts were hitting only empty space. Scourge alone was far beyond them in power and so it was over in seconds.

The three Autobots were now lying unconscious on the floor.

"Should we finish them off?" Specter asked.

"No, we are here for a special purpose and that is not part of it."

"They are our enemies," he replied.

"They are also Starscream´s and that is more important now. The Autobots might still be useful for our purpose."

"I see," the other robot said with a smirk on his face. "But maybe we will still have use for this one," he said as he grabbed the Autobot Bluestreak and carried him along.

They continued their way down the corridor until they had arrived at an quite ordinary looking entrance.

"That's it," Scourge said.

"Let's get inside," Specter answered as they blasted the door.

The two Decepticons were entering the morgue of Autobot city.

Before them were of the names of several Transformers who had died in the last battle, marking the chambers that held the bodies of this fallen warriors.

Ironhide, Ratchet, Prowl, Brawn, Windcharger, Grapple, they read and finally the one they had come looking for, Megatron.

xxx

Outside, Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus and Kup were standing opposite to Cyclonus and Wrath, while Springer, Wheeljack and Arcee, actually Optimus Primal, Rhinox and Blackarachnia, were facing the third attacker.

The Maximal leader realized that he was slowly gaining access to the main computer and the databanks of the body he was occupying. He now knew the military situation, he began to remember Springer´s duties and daily routines.

It was progress.

"Why should I fight for these Autobots?" Blackarachnia asked**.** "And those guys on top of it? I am not suicidal, after all."

"It would look suspicious if you didn´t," Rhinox said. "In case you haven´t noticed, you are in the body of an Autobot, so there is a good chance that they would attack you anyway."

"Just great," she replied once again.

Before them Optimus Primal had just gotten into close combat with the Decepticon Blade. During the short struggle**, **however, came a point where he suddenly froze.

xxx

Optimus Prime was about to challenge the leader of the small group of attackers.

"You are in no condition for a fight yet," Ultra Magnus warned him qietly.

"Don´t worry Magnus. I don´t think they are here for a serious fight. Then they wouldn´t have appeared here in such small numbers. They want something else."

"And if you are wrong?"

"Then I will count on you to get me out of trouble," Optimus replied**.** "Just like in old times."

"Do you really want to fight me alone Prime? Your fight with Megatron was only a few days ago. You were nearly killed. Have you recovered from your wounds?"

"You know much for someone we have never seen before."

"If you say so."

xxx

Hotrod and Blurr had been trying to get to the others as they found the unconscious bodies of two Autobots lying on the ground.

"Someonehasenteredthebase. Theyaregettinginside, inside," Blurr said in his typical overspeeded voice.

"They are invading the base while the most Autobots are busy fighting off the others," Hotrod guessed. "It seems they have been going in that direction." He pointed along the corridor.

"WhatdoyouthinkHotrod? Whatshallwedo?"

"We are going to get them."

xxx

At the morgue, Scourge and Specter were now standing before the body of their deceased leader after opening the lock of the compartment.

It took Scourge only a few seconds to scan the body to find what he was looking for.

"The aliens were telling the truth," he announced. "The death was caused by Decepticon weaponry, seeker weapons."

"Starscream," Specter said.

"Yes. We take him with us. Certain people on Cybertron will want to see this. Leave the Autobot."

xxx

"Two Decepticons," Hotrod whispered to his partner as they were hiding behind the door. "They are checking the bodies of the fallen."

"Whywouldtheydothat?"

"I don´t know, maybe they are trying to retrieve Megatron´s body," he answered. Suddenly**, **he saw the body of the Autobot who was still in the hands of one of the Cons.

"They have Bluestreak," he said grimly and drew his gun.

He remembered the battle. Optimus had nearly been killed because he had not interfered. He would not let another Autobot come to harm because of his inaction.

"Blurr," he said.

A few moments later**,** the racer was running with his full speed to the next corner of the room. They would try to take the Decepticons from two sides.

But before he could even lift his weapon, he himself was caught by a blast.

Blurr was the fastest Cybertronian who was ever created, but Scourge had the best sensors in the known universe. For him, the other robot was not much different than any other being, he could follow his movements easily.

As the Autobot was trying to aim his gun, Scourge had already shot him.

"No," they heard Hotrod yelling as he tried to jump at them. But before he could do anything, the winged and bearded robot slammed into him and threw him against the wall. He was concentrating solely on saving Blurr and so was his guard down.

As the light blue Autobot racer was struggling to get back to his feet, the second Decepticon shot him. The blast burned into his chest, dangerously close to the spark chamber, and he sank back to the ground.

Hotrod felt all his strength leaving him.

"Remember the plan," the bearded Decepticon said to his partner angrily.

"Sorry Scourge, but he was the one attacking us."

The last thing Hotrod saw before everything became dark for him was the fist of the Decepticon called Scourge.

xxx

"Cyclonus," Scourge´s voice came over the com, "we have what we came for. A few Autobots tried to stop us but they had no chance."

The leader of the Decepticon sub-group was still in his short struggle with Optimus.

"You heard it," he said to the others**.** "Decepticons retreat."

At his command, he and the two others transformed into jet-mode and lifted off.

"What in the world was that about?" Kup asked.

"You heard him," Optimus said. "They got what they wanted."

A few moments later, they received a call from Perceptor.

"Prime, we had an intrusion. Two Decepticons broke into the morgue and they have taken Megatron´s body."

"I understand."

"Optimus, " Percepter replied. "Another thing. Blurr is dead."

xxxxxxx

_Cybertron_

"What is it**, **Soundwave?" Starscream asked him annoyed as he walked into the communication central. "You requested to talk to me. Hurry up, I don´t have much time to deal with your issues."

Behind the new Decepticon leader, Shockwave had entered the room and listened silently to their conversation.

"Laserbeak returned with new reports from Earth," the communications officer replied stoically. The mechanical Condor was sitting on Soundwave´s arm, like the pet that he was, Starscream thought.

"And what about this is so important that you cannot deal with it yourselves and have to distract me from an important project?" He asked with a sneer.

Despite his unemotional nature, Soundwave was full of disdain about how their new leader, if the seeker could even be called that, was running things. Since the day he had taken over, he had basically shifted all important duties to him and was only working on his personal "secret projects" and he acted as if everything else was beneath him.

"Laserbeak witnessed a fight between Autobots and unknown group of Decepticons," Soundwave told them monotonically.

"So? It´s another group of renegades," Starscream said unimpressed**. **"Show me."

Laserbeak transformed into his cassette mode and glided into a port in the base´s computer.

Starcream took a look at the picture on the screen that activated before him and froze in pure terror.

"Cyclonus," he whispered as he saw the robot who was confronting Optimus Prime.

Did that mean Galvatron was also here? Not that his second wasn´t already dangerous enough, Starscream remembered**. **He could nearly feel Galvatron´s blast ripping through his old body.

"That is impossible," he said aloud.

"You know this robot commander?" Shockwave stated.

"No, I don´t know him," Starscream replied angrily. "Instead of asking me foolish question you should better go back to your duties."

Technically, they should be your duties, Shockwave thought silently.

If Starscream insisted of letting him do the work of the leader, maybe it was the logical conclusion that he should take over in name also.

"As you wish, " he said aloud.

xxxxxxx

_Autobot City Earth_

Optimus Primal, Rhinox and Blackarachnia were watching as the dead body of Blurr was carried out of the building, along with a devastated looking Hotrod who didn´t say a single word. Close behind them followed Bluestreak, who also seemed to be in shock, but not nearly as much as Hotrod.

"Another loss of the war, " Optimus Primal said.

"In our history," Rhinox said, "Blurr lived until many years later."

"This is not our world."

"And what do we now?" Blackarachnia asked. "Even if I have to work with you Maximals for now, we aren't one step closer to finding Starscream."

"That is not quite true," Optimus said. "I have started to remember the knowledge of this body. I know that Starscream had become leader of the Decepticons of this world and that after murdering Megatron during the battle of Autobot City."

"You think he had taken over his own counterpart?" Rhinox asked.

"What better way to become leader?"

"And Starscream is crazy enough to actually do that," Blackarachnia commented.

They realized that someone was approaching them.

"Hey guys," Cheetor/Bluestreak and Cosmos/Rattrap greeted them.

xxxxxxx

While the war over Cybertron continued, in other parts of time and space another battle took place.

Beyond the borders of that universe**, **the two factions of the Vok had started to fight each other.

It was a battle that was fought only partly with physical weapons and soldiers that the bodiless and formless Vok were using as proxies.

This war was not only spreading over several worlds, it was fought in multiple universes and in in different time periods.

In the end**,** however, the real decision would be made in the direct confrontation Vok against Vok and the only weapon that was left would be pure energy that they used to eradicate each other from existence.


	6. Chapter 6: Starscream x 2 ?

**Chapter 6**

_Autobot City Earth_

The crowd of robots was standing around the body of their fallen comrade. Soon he would joining the others in the crypt of the Autobots that was located somewhere deep in space.

Optimus Prime was standing next to Ultra Magnus, Jazz and Spike Witwicky and his family. The other Autobots were assembled in small groups around them.

All of them were grieving, but one in particular was taking it extremely hard.

Hotrod was blaming himself for what had happened. If he had not insisted on challenging the two Decepticons directly, Blurr would still be alive. And on top of that, he had failed to get his comrade out of the situation he had manouvered him into.

Even if the others were trying to talk him out of thinking like that, he knew it was true.

The memorial ceremony was nearly over. Optimus Prime and a few of Blurr´s closest friends and comrades had finished their respective speeches and the body was now being prepared for transport off-world along with the others who had fallen in the last battles.

Close to Hotrod, Arcee, Springer, Wheeljack and Bluestreak were standing together. This group had been hanging around together for the last few days now. He wasn´t sure why.

But it shouldn´t surprise him that Springer and Arcee didn´t want to be around him anymore now, when he was responsible for the death of an fellow Autobot.

A few metres away, the four robots in question were having a conversation on quite a different topic.

For the four strangers under them, watching this was like seeing a historical event, a burial ceremony of their ancestors.

"This is ridiculous, " Blackarachnia said. "What are we doing here at this Autobot ceremony?"

"This isn't our world, Optimus," Rhinox reminded him. "We should not even be here."

"You can thank Starscream and the Vok for this," Cheetor pointed out.

"Are you sure about what you have been told, Primal?" Blackarachnia asked him.

"About our Starscream taking over the other one? How could I? But at least it is an idea of where to start from."

Their group was standing a bit off-side of the rest. What they didn´t know was that someone else in the crowd had been watching them with curious eyes for the last few minutes.

xxx

"Hotrod," he heard the leader of the Autobots address him.

"Optimus," he said in a low voice, this was probably the last bot he wanted to see right now.

"I want to talk with you about what happened."

"There is no need to."

"I think there is," the Autobot leader replied.

"Prime, I know that it was my fault what happened, just like it was my fault when you had nearly been killed a short time ago and I did nothing."

"So when you don´t act and someone gets hurt it is your fault, but if you do something it is also?" Optimus asked him.

"Well?" Hotrod answered, caught off-guard for a moment by Optimus' logic.

"What happened during the battle was not your fault. It was mine. I fell for a simple trick and allowed Megatron to confuse me."

"I,"Hotrod hesitated for a moment. "I appreciated that you say that Optimus, but…"

"Hotrod look at me," Optimus replied. "The fact is Megatron should have never gotten his hands on this gun. Even if you had interfered, it could still have ended in the same way or you could have been killed yourself."

"Even if that is true, it doesn´t change that what happened now was my failure alone."

"Maybe you have made a mistake, " Optimus said. "To be honest, my theory is that you have the latest events effect your judgement. You didn´t want to fail again and so you acted."

"Yes," Hotrod admitted. "That is exactly what went through my mind. But my actions only resulted in Blurr´s death."

"And if you had done nothing, maybe Bluestreak would be dead now."

"That is my point, Optimus, they weren´t planning to kill him, they were actually going to let him go until we attacked them."

"You couldn´t have known this and even then, who is to say that they wouldn´t have just changed their minds and killed him anyway?"

"They didn´t."

"But they could have. We all can make wrong decisions, Hotrod. I certainly made enough myself. Sometimes people die in war, that cannot be avoided, sometimes it was because of my choices.

"But that is not what your real problem is," Optimus continued. "Yours is that you let your past actions cloud your judgement in the here and now.

"Soon our campaign on Cybertron will begin and we will need all our soldiers for it. I need you, Hotrod, and I need you in your right state of mind."

"I understand Optimus," Hotrod replied after a few moments of hesitation, showing a resolve he didn't really feel.

xxxxxxx

_Three weeks later_

Inside the underground labs on the planet Cybertron, one of Starscream´s infamous "secret projects" was coming to its conclusion.

The room was filled with a large number of nearly identical looking robots, seekers, whose bodies were connected with cables to the machinery inside the lab. It were over a dozen that were lined here, all in the image of their original.

Next to Starscream stood the Decepticon Needlenose, who assisted in the work.

Sunstorm, the first clone who had been created years ago, was present and conscious but chained to the wall.

Out of some twisted notion, Starscream had decided that it was fitting for him to see this. He was, after all, in many ways the source of what was happening here.

And it was good to have him around as illustrative material should the newly produced clones show defects.

Yes, Sunstorm would be an excellent test subject should the others not live up to the expectations.

"What you are doing here is a sin against Primus," the clone told them.

His voice was very similar to Starscream´s, only a bit deeper and less screechy.

"Oh really," the Air Commander asked him mockingly, "and what would a creature like you know about it?"

"You are meddling with life itself," Sunstorm answered.

"And this `meddling´ is the only reason you even exist."

"That is the reason I should be destroyed. I am not as selfish as you, Starscream."

"I see why they found it fitting to shut you down," the other retorted. "Start the process now, Needlenose," he ordered.

As the Decepticon activated the machinery, the first two robots in the line-up came to life. Unlike Starscream, they were colored dark blue, looking more like Thundercracker or Skywarp.

The pair walked up simultaneously in front of the Air Commander and raised their hands in greeting.

"All hail Starscream, leader of the Decepticons," they said, both in monotone emotionless voices.

"Very good," he said. "Is their programming intact Needlenose?"

"Program is complete and working," the Con reported.

"Good, obedient little drones aren´t they? Activate the rest of them."

One by one the robots went on-line and declared their loyalty to their new leader, until there were only two left.

"The regular troops are ready," Starscream said. "They are to be the first of my new army. And now to my two special models."

There was only one pair left. These were different from the others.

The second-to-last model was unique in a number of ways. It was female in design, in the colors of purple and black and unlike the rest, there were no Decepticon marks on her body.

But that was not the only difference separating this one from the others. The moment the robot came to life, a strange glow surrounded her.

That was what the others were able to see, at least. In fact, it was a foreign energy that was entering the construct.

As the femme awakened, the first thing she did was inspect her own body. Unlike the rest, this model was certainly fully sentient.

"Interesting." It was the first thing that she said. She was watching her arms closely, the sleek guns attached to them, moving her fingers experimentally.

"I have to admit this is fascinating, having a physical body," she stated.

"I hope you are satisfied," Starscream replied. "I have fulfilled this part of our agreement. As you have said, you have been tasked to oversee my successes in person."

He said this with a level of scorn. As if his allies didn´t trust him. _On the other hand, maybe this was a wise decision of theirs_, he thought in silent amusement.

"Indeed," she told him. "This physical shell you have created for my consciousness is on the first look," she paused for a moment, finding the right words, "a perfect fit."

"Of course it is, it was constructed based off of the design of myself and my air group after all," Starscream said with a smirk.

"Giving you this body had cost me energy and resources. I hope what you give me in return will be worth it."

"Don´t worry," she replied. "I am not only here to, how would you name it? Keep an eye on you, but also to assist you to build your new weapons in person.

"I am here to help. We are allies after all."

"Yes, we are," he replied with a smile. "By the way, what shall we call you now?" he asked the creature. "As I understand it, your kind doesn´t have individual names. But as a member of **my** troops you will need a designation." He gave a special pronouncing to the term `my´.

This being, he reminded himself, was actually the mind of a Vok spirit inside a Transformer body. It had been part of their deal.

"You are right, my kind never bothered to label themselves like yours did. But since I will now have to move under your command, I will probably have to improvise.

"And because this body was partly designed after you, I think… Slipstream would be a fitting title."

"If you think so, Slipstream, it is," he said, overplaying her too obvious arrogance. _But I still won´t trust her_, he thought silently.

Next to them, Needlenose had been following their exchange in strange bewilderment.

"Now continue with the last model," Starscream ordered.

"As you wish."

This last robot was once again unique in this line. Unlike the others, this one looked exactly like the real Air Commander.

"Then let us take with the last step," he said.

The last clone-robot was released from his bonds. His systems were activated, but he was still standing motionless without showing any sign of life.

Until something happened that put the silent observer Needlenose in even greater shock than the bizarre awakening of the female model.

What now happened was terrifying.

For a moment the Air Commander´s body was radiating a strange light, not quite unlike the femme who was calling herself Slipstream now.

Then it started looking as if his own spark was ripping itself out of his body. The floating sphere of energy left the unmoving body of Starscream and was slowly drifting to the identical copy. As the spark merged with the body, the robot came to life with a bright glowing of his optics.

In the second the clone awakened, the first Starscream nearly instantly showed a reaction.

The chains that had been holding him in a mental stranglehold all these weeks were broken. He was free.

"What…," he yelled in complete shock. "Where am I?"

Then he suddely realized that he was staring into his own face.

"Who are you? What…" he stammered in bewilderment. "Wait, I remember you, I remember…"

At that moment, the other robot grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the wall behind them.

"I am Starscream," he said, "the only true one."

"I am Starscream," the first seeker shouted in anger and confusion.

"You are a failure," the other responded. "Weak and a disgrace to my name. In the last three weeks I have watched your memories, witnessed your life. I am not impressed."

"Who, what are you?" the first one screamed.

The stranger with his appearance, however, ignored the question.

"I could kill you now," he told him. "But I won´t take the risk of you getting into the same state as me. No, I have a better idea. Bring him to my new flagship, to the prison section," Starscream´s double ordered two of the clones.

"No," he protested.

"It is too bad for you that these robots are programmed to be loyal to me and not you.

"Throw him into the same cell together with this abomination." He gestured at Sunstorm, who was still hanging on the wall.

"I believe you two are old friends. As I have seen in your mind you were once at his mercy until he actually spared your life." Cruel sarcasm dripped from every one of his words.

In silence, they dragged the two prisoners out of the room. Starscream had given up protesting while Sunstorm didn´t say anything out of defiance.

"Finally he is gone," Starscream, the one who was still there, stated. "It was more than enough sharing a body with that weakling for three weeks," he said.

Now there is only one loose end left."

Without a warning he raised his guns, aimed them at Needlenose, who was still staring in complete confusion at what had happened before his eyes, and fired.

"I am sorry, my friend, but I fear you have heard and seen too much, far too much." He grinned.

The wounded Decepticon was lying before him on the floor and was trying in vain to get further away from him. Starscream´s blasts had ruined one of his legs and ripped a hole into his stomach.

"Yes, the increase in firepower in really impressive. Integrating parts of Cyclonus design into my own was truly a good idea," he said in Slipstream´s direction. "I am stronger, faster and more advanced when ever before. This is only the first small test of my abilities."

"Wait. Let me do it," she told him.

"Why?"

"I am curious. I have never done something like that before, not like this, in person."

"Well, now, if you want to," he offered.

For a moment, Slipstream giggled like a little girl as she stepped closer.

"Please," Needlenose begged as she pointed her weapons at him.

Without another moment of hesitation, she fired.

"Oh yes, this is really interesting," she said with glee.

xxxxxxx

_Autobot City Earth_

She had seen Bluestreak walking into one of the unused storage rooms of the base. Carly didn´t know if she had made the right decision to follow him on that day, she wasn´t even sure what driven her to do it in the first place.

In the last few weeks, she had come more and more to believe that a few of the Autobots were acting strangely.

Springer and Arcee had been spending most of their time together with Bluestreak and Wheeljack. Cosmos had also been seen with them from time to time, when he wasn´t making excursion flights.

She had actually overheard Optimus Prime giving him a good telling off a few days ago about his constant unauthorized absences.

The worst part was that Arcee and Springer seemed to be actually avoiding Hotrod.

Carly knew that he secretly thought that they were blaming him for Blurr´s death and their behavior didn´t help to make things better. She only hoped that they weren't really thinking this.

As she got closer, Carly heard someone talking.

"I am sick of this, Primal." It was the voice of Arcee, but something about it was different, she realized.

"We are lurking around in this base, struggling to somehow do even the daily routine of this guys without anybody realizing that we barely know anything, pretending to be a bunch of Autobots from the great war."

The words made Carly freeze. What was going on here?

"If it wasn´t for the fact that everybody has their hands full with the coming attack, we would have been found out a long time ago."

"I have to agree with Blackarachnia here," another voice, Bluestreak, said. "We can't keep up this charade any longer. It's a wonder that we even made it this far."

"You know boss-bot, not all of us can access the memories of our host bodies." It was Cosmos.

Carly, who was now cowering in the neighboring corridor, couldn´t believe what she was hearing.

Host bodies? Pretending to be Autobots? Had an entire group of Autobots been taken over by some sort of aliens? How could this be?

On the other hand, had they not already seen things that were just as strange as that?

She heard the heavy steps of an Autobot coming from behind her.

As she turned around she saw that it was Wheeljack. For a split second she was relieved, until she realized that he had also been part of this group over the last few weeks.

She took two steps backwards.

"Guys, I think we have a visitor," he said in a tonefall that was completely untypical for the Wheeljack she knew.

A few seconds later the five had surrounded her.

"Tell me," the being in Springer´s body asked her, "what exactly have you heard?"

Carly didn´t answer.

"I fear, everything that has been said in the last minutes," `Wheeljack´answered in her place.

"We could just kill her," `Arcee´ pointed out.

"We won´t do that," `Bluestreak´, actually Cheetor, replied. "We are not Decepticons after all."

"Only speak for yourself," she commented.

"We won´t do anything to harm you, you have my word on this," the being in Springer´s body told her.

"Who are you?"

"We are, to put it simply, travelers from another dimension. We were forced to temporarily occupy the bodies of your friends."

"What has happened to them, to their minds?"

"To be honest, we are not completely sure. This didn´t exactly happen by our choice."

"I…I understand," she said. The truth, however, was that she barely understood anything.

"I think we should look for another place to continue this discussion," Wheeljack, who was in fact Rhinox, said to them.

"Yes, the last think we need is someone else overhearing us," Optimus agreed.

A few seconds after they had left, Mirage deactivated his cloaking field.

The whole time he had his gun ready, prepared to aim it at the Springer impostor should it have been necessary.

"Prime," he spoke into his communicator, "I have just been listening to our `guests´. It seems you were right. It looks like they are not a direct threat."

"I understand."

It was a few weeks ago now that Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus had first noticed the strange behavior of a number of Autobots and had started to investigate.

"Prime, there is something else you need to know. Carly just walked in on them. She is with them right now."

"I…understand," Optimus Prime repeated, this time after a short hesitation.

xxxxxxx

_The planet Paradron_

Millions of years ago the ancestors of the inhabitants of Paradron had left their original home-world, the planet Cybertron.

They were a group of Autobots, following a strict philosophy of pacifism that they refused to give up when the great war broke out.

So they came to the decision to leave Cybertron behind, and after a journey through space, they discovered and colonized a new world.

There they were able to spend their existence in peace for millions of years, until today.

It was a complete surprise to everyone on their world when a ship materialized in space over the planet.

The Decepticons known as Starscream, Astrotrain, Blitzwing, Octane, Slipstream, Gutcruncher, Krok and the Combaticons exited the vessel, accompanied by the seeker clones.

They flew down unto the capital city of the planet, landing between the completely terrified Paradronians and beginning to round them up.

Some of them were still in the air, firing into several buildings and setting them on fire.

After only a few minutes it was over, Paradron City was under their control.

What they didn´t realize was that on the other side of the planet, a few of the natives were preparing to board a escape ship and flee into space.

* * *

**Authors-notes**: The confrontation between the two versions of Starscream is of course a homage to the Animated episode "A bridge too close".

The reason for the regular Starscream´s attitude toward his counterpart and his brutal reaction to him is this:

For example at that time during "Revenge of Bruticus", as the one we know had shot Shockwave in the back and tried to blackmail Megatron,

(what was a pretty short sighted tactic by the way since the Combaticons were still i control of Cybertron and could have simply showed up and arrested him anytime,)

this version had instead worked together with Shockwave and Megatron to buy back his position as SIC. Later he, like the regular one, helped Megatron to reprogram Bruticus and was welcomed back to the Decepticons as a hero instead of a necessary nuisance.

That means, while less grabs for power, he had often made the wiser decisions and that is something the normal Starscream doesn´t forgive. He is a jealous one.


	7. Chapter 7: contacts and alliances

**Chapter 7**

_The planet Paradron_

It had only been a few days since the invasion.

The entire population was now in slavery.

The complex that had once been the government-building had become the headquarters of the occupation force.

It was the place where Starscream, the new lord of Paradron, was residing.

At the moment he was sitting inside a improvised throne-room next to his new ally and confidant Slipstream and they were over-viewing the situation.

It was only a few weeks ago that he was nothing, he realized, less than even a renegade, only a bodiless spark lost in the void.

Now he was the leader of the Decepticon army and master over an empire. Two populated planets, outposts on a half dozen others, and the means to conquer hundreds more, all that was his.

After all these years, he finally was in the position he should have been from the beginning.

"The work is making progress as planned," Slipstream informed him. "The slaves are under control and no resistance is showing.

If everything continues without disturbances, the weapons I have promised you will be ready in less than 20 cycles."

"Good, very good," he told her.

"There is still the matter of the group of natives who have escaped the planet," she reminded him.

This, however, left a sour taste for Starscream.

He would have liked to think that the refugees were absolutely no threat, but he knew that in the other reality like this one, they had actually made it to Cybertron, which ultimately led to the loss of Paradron for the Decepticons.

Was there a chance that history would repeat itself?

"If this group manages to reach the other Autobots, it could cause problems for us," he stated.

"We are still interrogating the personnel of the space port they started from."

From the way she said the word "interrogating", it was clear that she meant torturing them. Cute, he thought, only a few days back she wouldn´t have the sense to use euphemisms due to her alien heritage.

"However, you will soon have a power under your control that will allow you to stop any attack," she continued. "We could even destroy this planet ourselves and it would not make any difference. You could just conquer a dozen others."

"No," he replied, "this planet is mine. I won´t loose a core piece of my new empire. You will give me these weapons and then I will crush every possible Autobot attack."

"If you say so."

"Believe me, I will win this war soon once and for all."

"As long as you fulfill your part of our alliance. Remember, when the Autobots are dealt with, your new technology will help us to defeat the other side."

Starscream saw that with every day she was acting more like a real Decepticon instead of an alien intelligence inside a Cybertronian body.

Good, that probably meant that she would be easier to get along with.

So this was the beginning of his new empire.

For a moment his mind drifted to the Autobots and Decepticons of his own world. He knew they were still there.

The Autobots allied with the humans, defending their world, even seeing that pathetic organic planet as some sort of second home, now surely living in the peace that they had yearned for so long and the Decepticons still out there somewhere in the universe, probably ruling entire worlds, without him, far out of his reach.

With him being scorned and despised by both sides.

They thought he was defeated forever, they thought he was nothing, only a spark drifting through the nothingness for all eternity.

Galvatron, Optimus and Rodimus Prime, Cyclonus, Ultra Magnus, Soundwave, Scourge, that blasted human Spike Witwicky, even Optimus Primal and Megatron Two and their insignificant bunch; he could not even say how much he hated them all.

He wished nothing more than that he could reach out and destroy them. But he knew it was in vain.

Their counterparts would suffer in their place.

He had already dealt with the Megatron of this world and he thought he had gotten rid of Optimus Prime, Skywarp and Thundercracker. The last two without them getting turned into their new incarnations.

But as it turned out, Optimus had survived Megatron´s shooting in this reality and somehow Cyclonus and Scourge had appeared.

Slipstream had suggested that maybe the Vok from the other side had found the five robots they had abandoned and turned them into their new forms.

If that was true, they were already active here and working against them. It didn´t matter, soon he would be invincible.

He laid back and let himself drift into thoughts of his enemies dieing horrible, painful deaths.

xxxxxxx

_Cybertron, sector Polyphex - Decepticon Headquarters_

At the same time in his office in the Decepticon HQ, the governor of Cybertron, Shockwave, was in a conversation with an special guest.

"The information you have given me has proven to be correct, Scourge," he addressed him.

"As I assured you," the robot replied.

"It however doesn´t confirm your identity," he reminded him.

This Decepticon, Scourge, arrived on Cybertron a few days ago. Nobody knew him or had ever met him before. While he claimed to be a recreated version of Thundercracker, there was, of course, no proof for it.

The news he brought, however, was far more disturbing. Scourge gave them evidence that the new Decepticon leader, Starscream, had been taken over by a alien presence and that this being was also responsible for Megatron´s death.

That**,** however**, **was only one more reason for Shockwave to hasten up his plans.

Such an impostor could not be allowed to continue to lead the Decepticons. But the truth was that he had begun to prepare a take-over attempt.

Even if he had been who he claimed to be (and that was, in this case, already not too promising from the beginning), their new leader had made a line of dangerous mistakes and had to be removed.

It was for the best of the Decepticons, logic dictated so.

Scourge and his group, on the other hand, could be a valuable addition to their cause.

He would see how the relationship with them would turn out.

"Alone, the information I gave you should be proof about my identity," Scourge claimed.

"It is true that you have very intimate knowledge about the inner workings of the Decepticon army and about Thundercracker´s personal history. That means that you are either one of our officers or someone who has access to very good spy work," Shockwave said.

"But…," Scourge started to reply.

"I accept your offer to join us, for now," the Decepticon governor informed him. "Tell this to your group when you contact them."

"As you wish, Shockwave," he responded.

xxxxxxx

_Planet Paradron_

The female Transformer named Slipstream, who was actually a Vok intelligence in a new body, watched silently as a line of electrical shocks were sent through the body of the helpless robot. She followed every movement and every scream with great interest.

This physical existence had in the beginning only been a way to further her own goal and to keep an eye on their ally Starscream.

But she had to admit she had also been curious about the experience and very quickly she came to really appreciate it.

It was fascinating to see what kind of agony the creature was going through at her command.

In her old formless existence, she was responsible for many deaths. She made and supported decisions that meant life or doom of entire worlds, but never like this, never this close and in person.

Finally, the device shot one last, extremely high load of electricity through the Autobot´s body and he lost consciousness.

She finally came to the conclusion that the prisoners actually had no further knowledge about the whereabouts of the refugees.

"Kill them," she ordered the clones.

xxxxxxx

_Cybertron_

Scourge was standing on top of one of the buildings of the skyline of Polyphex

"Cyclonus," he spoke into his comm.-system, "Shockwave has agreed to our offer. He seems to believe us."

"Okay Scourge, we will return to Cybertron and reunite with the regular Decepticon forces. We will meet you in 1**.**2 cycles."

"Understood, Cyclonus."

xxxxxxx

_Autobot City__**, **__Earth_

"So you five are what, exactly?" Carly questioned the group of strange visitors.

"You could say travelers in time and space," the being in Springer´s body told her. "Where we came from, we are descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons you know."

"In short we are Maximals," Rattrap commented. "Only she´s a Pred." He pointed at `Arcee´, who only frowned.

"We are here to stop a certain enemy," he informed her.

"Yeah, Starscream," Cheetor muttered.

"Starscream?" she asked.

"He´s not who you think," he replied.

"That is all very interesting." They heard a voice and Mirage was appearing next to them. "It is good to know that you are not a threat to us, but Optimus Prime would still like to talk to you," the Autobot said.

A second later, the door opened and Ultra Magnus stepped inside, followed by the Protectobots.

xxxxxxx

_Somewhere in an __unknown universe, 2 million years in the past_

It was a dimension where the conflicts between the Autobots and the Decepticons never played a role on the cosmic scale.

Here, on a small organic world, another war was taking place.

For the last two generations, this planet had been separated into rivaling political blocks.

And for the longest time, this competition between the different factions played out with relatively little actual violence.

This planet had been in the state that on Earth was known as the Cold War.

That, however, changed around one local year earlier. It was at that time that a group of visitors arrived on their world.

These strangers were the first aliens who had ever contacted their species.

They claimed to be refugees from a very old civilization that didn´t exist anymore due to a cosmic disaster.

The aliens were a form of intelligence that they had never seen before. Instead of creatures of flesh and blood like themselves or even mechanical life-forms, they were living energy, without bodies or permanent forms.

What they didn´t know was that these beings were not only not from the planet they claimed to be theirs, they were not even from their universe, and that a great part of what they had been telling them were lies and that their motives were all but benevolent.

The visitors offered them new technologies, weapons and the chance to explore space. In exchange they asked for little, very little, only a share of the material that they were helping to create for their own benefit. It was a alliance nobody would have refused.

But soon it became clear that the relationship the aliens were developing involved only one of the four main powers. This happened to be the most ambitious one and most determined to dominate the others.

Over the course of several months, the visitors supplied them with weapons, technology and secretly, new ideas.

The outcome was unavoidable. For a time the other states who had been left out tried to clear up the "misunderstanding" with the visitors, but of course it was in vain.

After six months, war broke out. It was the attempt of the one super power that the aliens were supporting to achieve global rule.

By the point when they found out how they had all been manipulated, it was far too late.

In the beginning, the aggressors had the upper hand over their opponents and were on the brink of subduing them, but after some time, the other states formed an alliance and managed to fight back.

The nuclear weapons that their world had possessed before were quickly replaced by far more advanced anti-matter projectiles that left no fall-out, but were able to cause even greater destruction.

Another thing that barely anybody was aware of was the fact that the allied nations were suddenly able to defend themselves against the attackers was no coincidence. Shortly after the outbreak of the fighting, another group of visitors showed up and offered them help.

In its final phase, the war devastated the planet and cost the lives of nearly a quarter of their population, all that in only a half year. By that time, the tide had completely turned against the ones who had originally started it.

The capital city of the nation who had started the war was surrounded by the armies of their enemies and under siege both from ground and air.

In the middle of this area, in their military headquarters, were also residing both their own leadership and their invisible ally, a group of three Vok presences that were supporting them with technology and advice.

Out of a mixture of desperation and fanaticism, their leaders had agreed to the creation of one last weapon in addition to the already large stockpile that they were already holding in secret bunkers all over the town. This one was promised by their partners to be able to cause a destruction like never seen before.

But they would never have the chance to use it.

Their enemies had started to storm the city and their defenses were being over-run.

During all this, the three Vok renegades were discussing if they should get involved themselves or if they should just abandon the planet and start again somewhere else.

But like the organic beings they had been using as their tools, they would never have the chance to make their move because it was too late.

A large ship, one like this world had never seen before, materialized right over the headquarters.

A moment later, a device was activated and aimed directly at the building. It was one of the major weapons to be used during the civil war of the Vok, a special kind of energy radiation, especially designed to target the life essences of their own kind and destroy them.

Before they knew what hit them**,** the three Vok were wiped out from existence and a short time later the leaders of the single nation realized in panic that the voice of their allies had been silenced forever.

But for all of them it was already too late. In the moment it became clear that the war was lost, a secret order was being given in one of the weapon factories.

Not wanting their resources to fall into the hands of their opponents, the Vok renegades had secretly programmed the computer that was controlling the production to self destruct should the inner defenses of the capital be broken.

A giant explosion covered the area, leveling the entire city and erasing nearly all traces of the presence of the visitors.

This was the story of one of the worlds that became involved in the Vok civil war. It was one of the most prominent and also the one with the most tragic results.

The planet was scarred for centuries and never completely recovered. The following generations returned to a more primitive lifestyle and banned all higher technologies. This continued until the decline of their civilization 1,200 years later.

xxxxxxx

In another time, dimensions away, a creature named Slipstream was being informed about the disastrous results of the battle.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8  
**

_Cybertron,_

It was deep in the heart of the Decepticon empire, the space-bridge port of the Cybertronian sector Polyphex.

At the moment, the installation was non-functional because no transports were planned and was currently guarded by two seekers.

That was, until now. Suddenly the machine behind them came to life. The space-bridge was being activated without authorization.

Both looked at each other in confusion; they knew that no arrival was planned for today, in fact none was planned for the entire week.

The space-bridge system was barely used these days. After they had driven off the Autobot resistance from Cybertron, the Decepticons had, for the most part, returned to more regular means of transport.

Before the two surprised guards fully realized what had happened, a team of twelve Autobots had materialized on the platform.

And before they had a chance to react, the dozen newcomers had drawn their weapons and fired on them. The two robots were hit by precise head-shots that were killing them nearly instantly.

"We are here, this is definitely sector Polyphex," Ultra Magnus, the leader of the just arrived strike-group announced after running a scan on their surroundings.

Beside himself his team consisted of Kup, Hotrod, Mirage, Hound, Trailbreaker, Perceptor and the Protectobots. They were a contingent of warriors who had been sent over the space bridge first to secure the area and prepare for the following invasion.

The long planned major offensive of the Autobots had finally begun.

xxx

At the same time, a few million miles away, a fleet was holding course towards the planet. Besides the two regular shuttles, it was Omega Supreme in his rocket- and Cosmos alias Rattrap in his spaceship-mode.

Magnus' team was a strike-force that was sent over the hijacked and restored space-bridge to Cybertron with the aim to establish a bridge-head on the planet before the actual attack. After them the main part of their army would be arriving from space.

One fact, however, that only a few were aware of was that not all of the fighters on board were actually Autobots.

"Well, have I already told you that this is a stupid idea, Optimus?" Rhinox commented.

"Yes you have, a few times actually."

"Then I say it again," he said.

"This may be our best chance to get him," Optimus Primal, who was still occupying Springer´s body, replied.

"It is going to be a real battle," Rhinox replied. "Training exercises and skirmishes with the Predacons are one thing, but this is the Great War. Look around, the others here have done this for thousands or even millions of years and you think you can just jump in and play Autobot? This **is** stupid. We are not supposed to be here."

Optimus Primal remembered his field training at the military academy of Iacon back on Cybertron as he was still a cadet. That now seemed an eternity ago, even if it was technically only a few years before, time-jump and dimensional displacement not taken into account. This was not longer his time and recently not even his universe anymore.

He had to admit that in those days he had been fascinated by the history of the old Autobot-Decepticon conflict and in many ways he still was. Now he realized he had gotten his wish. He was right in the middle of the Great War.

His opponents back then on Cybertron, however, had been either other cadets or mindless drones programed to follow preset attack patterns.

In particular, an incident during an exercise came to his mind when he was running with blazing guns through an entire group of training-droids. Here the same sort of behavior would probably get him killed.

The problem was**, **he was still a rookie commander with only a few months of actual fighting experience surrounded by veteran warriors.

Rhinox seemed to have similar thoughts in his mind.

"Starscream is there," Optimus argued.

"Yes, and with him the entire Decepticon army," his partner told him.

"I know it is a risk." He paused for a moment.

"It is too much of a risk," Rhinox pointed out.

"Dinobot and Waspinator wanted to meet us there."

"They told us to meet them on Cybertron, they didn´t say in the middle of a major battle."

"I know that but..."

"Boss-bot, normally I would never question one of your decision like that but here I have to ask you, what the hell were you thinking?"

"All of us who are here now have gained access to our host body´s memories," he defended his decision to join the invasion.

"Archived memories are still not actual skills and experiences, " Rhinox replied. "We aren´t Autobot warriors."

"They are needing every Bot for this battle. We are in the bodies of five of their warriors, five soldiers who were meant to be here."

"It is these five that we are endangering these five more than anybody else with our presence here. Is this because of Prime?" Rhinox wanted to know. "Are you doing this because **he** asked you?"

Optimus Primal didn´t know how to respond.

xxx

At the same time on the surface, Ultra Magnus and his group had secured the area around the space-bridge and began to run an attack on the control-center of the planetary defenses.

They were at the moment involved in a heavy firefight with the defending troops.

During this, Magnus gave one simple sounding order.

"Protectobots, merge." At his word the five robots transformed and combined into the giant Defensor. The Autobot gestalt quickly began to overwhelm their opponents.

xxx

By now the oncoming ships were already preparing for the landing.

Omega Supreme´s air-locks opened as he was still in the sky and five large robots came flying out. It was the Dinobots diving downwards in attack formation.

Next was another fiver-group, the Aerialbots, who were leaving one of the shuttles in jet-form.

As soon as they touched the ground, Omega Supreme transformed into robot-mode, just as the Aerialbots combined into their gestalt Superion and the two super-robots were joining the battle.

Against them and Defensor stood the Constructicons and the Stunticons, the only two Decepticon combiner groups who were currently on the planet.

Inside his office in Decepticon headquarters Shockwave was, in his logical way of course, cursing Starscream for carelessly withdrawing so many of their troops for his own personal adventures.

xxx

"I have no right to ask this of you." Primal remembered Optimus Prime´s voice from their last conversation. He heard the words from the Autobot leader in his mind now. Maybe he should have listened to him.

_"I have no right to ask this of you," Optimus Prime said to him during their conversation two days ago. "You are not my soldiers, in fact you aren´t even really Autobots. Th__ese __are desperate times for us and we need every man."_

During this confrontation**,** they had informed the Autobot leader about everything, who they were, Starscream, the Vok. He was understandably less than happy that five of his warriors were practically out of service and that in a time like this.

And Optimus Primal remembered the answer he had given to him.

_"We would like to come with you sir."_

Blackarachnia was of course not with them. Despite being created from a Maximal protoform she was still a Predacon and if he was honest, she could hardly be expected to fight against her own ancestors.

Still, she was in the same situation as the rest of them. Like them, she would only be able to return to their world if they managed to stop Starscream.

Thinking about it, he had asked himself the question why Dinobot and Waspinator had not been with them from the beginning. Looking back, the answer was quite obvious: their sparks. The ones of Maximal heritage had been going to inhabit Autobot bodies and the one of Predacon one Decepticons. This was the reason this two had landed here on Cybertron instead of in Autobot city.

From the moment they had landed, they had been under heavy fire. In the last several minutes, he had seen Autobots, legendary warriors in his time, dying left and right to him.

The first had been Cliffjumper, a member of the original Ark crew, who was killed by a shot through the spark chamber less than a minute after they had landed.

Then came Smokescreen, the Autobot warrior was hit by at least a half dozen blasts before he went down.

For all their power, their size and strength, Optimus realized, the old Transformers were actually inferior to the Maximals and Predacons in one thing: they were much more vulnerable to damage.

A Maximal could literally be blown to pieces and survive unless his spark is extinct, an Autobot obviously could not.

And they were in the bodies of five of them.

Maybe Rhinox was right, he thought, maybe he had let his admiration of Prime cloud his judgement, maybe he had underestimated the danger, maybe they should have stayed behind.

xxxxxxx

Miles away from the battlefield, five more robots were assembled and waiting for their call. They were Decepticons, but space-jets of a foreign design.

"Cyclonus." The leader of the group was receiving a transmission. "Do you hear me?"

"Yes Shockwave," he replied. "Have you come to a decision?"

"I have. You are powerful warriors. It would be illogical not to reintegrate you into our forces. So I accept your offer. I will take command of the Decepticons and you Cyclonus are my new second in command."

"I understand. Thank you, Shockwave."

"There is however one condition," the governor of Cybertron continued.

"I think I can guess what that is," Cyclonus stated.

"This planet is under attack. Since our current leader has made the decision to withdraw necessary troops and resources for his own plans, the Decepticons now need your help. You will join the defending forces now."

"I understand, commander."

As the communication was cut-off one of his group asked him one question.

"Tell me, why are you not simply taking over yourself? You are more powerful than Shockwave. I am sure you would manage to bring him down," Wrath wanted to know.

"I have no real interest in taking leadership of the Decepticons," Cyclonus responded, "and we have our own mission given by the Vok right now."

"Why should we do what these aliens want?" Specter asked him.

"Maybe because they have saved our hides and are also very powerful and they certainly won´t like it if we just ignore the task they have handed to us," the winged and bearded robot beside them commented.

"Scourge is right," Cyclonus said, "and even if we are able to fight the Vok off it, would be a needless risk. After all, it is not as if we have a problem with this mission." _Not in the slightest_, he thought.

"What I truly want is to avenge Megatron and destroy this creature," he pointed out. "And if our Starscream gets in the way with that, well it will be his loss."

xxxxxxx

_Decepticon-flagship, in orbit over the planet Paradron_

Two robots, two very similar robots, were sitting together in a single cell in the body of the ship.

Both were seekers, both of them were of the same design, in fact both were nearly identical.

_How could it have come to this? _one of them asked himself silently.

Starscream, the one who had been created in this reality, could only wait here and look back at the insane events of the last weeks.

This strange double of himself had somehow taken him over and kept him a prisoner in his own body.

"Here you see what happens when you defy the will of Primus," the clone seeker next to him said.

"Shut up," Starscream yelled at him.

"Your denial won´t change anything." Sunstorm smiled. "With my creation, you had started your heresy in the first place and now it is your unholy doppelganger who has continued it."

"I said shut up," the overthrown Air Commander repeated.

He was sick of having to listen to the rants of the lunatic.

And at the same time he had to think about the creature that brought him into this situation in the first place.

Just who was this mysterious double of him?

It was not a clone, that much was clear.

He still remembered shreds of memories from the weeks that he had been trapped in his own body, bits about something else, another life, things that had never happened.

In first line**,** he remembered himself or maybe rather the other one, standing on top of the podium in Polyphex and being shot by a purple Decepticon he had never seen before, but at the same time he knew that this robot was somehow Megatron.

Galvatron, he had the name burned in his mind.

However, there was also something else in the back of his mind, a strange sort of Transformer, neither Decepticon or Autobot but somehow similar, smaller and seemingly with organic components. It was bizarre.

Where the hell did that being came from?

Somehow he knew, this other one was him in a strange way.

Anyway, caging him here together with the insane clone was possibly the worst punishment his double could have imagined.

He remembered what happened 15 Earth years ago, how he had allowed Shockwave to talk him into letting him create a copy of himself.

Of course the clone went insane and attacked him in the matter of only a few months.

It was all still fresh in his mind, even the one thing that wasn´t in the official records, that nobody knew beside Sunstorm, Megatron, Soundwave and himself; only one small detail, the most shameful one for him that Megatron in some twisted act of kindness had kept to himself.

In the end the clone, Sunstorm had him at his mercy and for some reason changed his mind and decided not to kill him. He had spared him.


End file.
